Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2016 3:43 pm

QUETICO PROVINCIAL PARK- A family trip in the Boundary Waters and Quetico turned tragic, on July 4, when the Kareken family’s dog slipped and fell into the raging waters of Rebecca Falls, near Lac La Croix.

“We were paddling the Nina Moose to Fall Lake Loop,” said Dave Kareken, “taking a family canoe trip before dropping our son off at Camp Widjiwagan.”

A few days into the trip, they took a hike over to view Rebecca Falls.

“The falls were pretty impressive,” Dave said. “My wife and I both met as whitewater instructors and guides. It was a lot of water. We’ve run a lot of rapids, but weren’t keen to run those.”

The family was on the shore, and the dog had been put on a leash, so as not to disturb anyone at the nearby campsite.

“There was a deep crack in the rock, and the dog tried to leap over it, forgetting she was on the leash,” Dave said. “The leash caught her short, she slipped out of her harness, and she fell into the crack down into the water.”

Dave said he immediately jumped down close to the water, but by then Kali had disappeared, underwater.

No one in the family saw the dog emerge from the raging river.

The couple, both with years of whitewater safety experience, knew it was foolhardy to put themselves at risk.

“If I had gone into the water after her,” Dave said, “I probably would have drowned.”

“We called and called for hours,” he said. “But looking at the power of the water, we thought she couldn’t have survived it.” Kali, a seven-year-old collie/retriever mix, was a veteran wilderness traveler, and not afraid of the water, he said, but did not like to have her head go under.

The family made the decision to paddle back to Fall Lake, as quickly as possible, instead of continuing on their canoe trip.

“We were terribly grieved,” he said.

The family spent the next few days in Duluth with their son Zach, who was turning 15, trying to process what had happened. They later returned to Ely, dropping Zach off at Widji, feeling that it was best for him to be with his camp friends, while the couple made the 22-hour car trip back home to Asheville, N.C.

The phone call

They arrived home on July 15, and two days later got a phone call that changed the experience from tragic to magical. By now, over ten days had passed since they lost the dog in the falls.

The couple had let friends in Ely know about Kali, and asked if anyone found a drowned dog to let them know, leaving messages with friends at Widji and outfitters who work in that area.

But the call, from a wilderness ranger in the Quetico, wasn’t about a drowned dog, it was about a live one.

“A dog had been found that matched her description,” Dave said. “We got in touch with the rangers, and sent photos back and forth.”

“It was Kali. She’d been out in the woods ten days, but looked to be in pretty good condition.”

Dave grabbed some clean clothes, filled up his coffee cup, and jumped back in the car for the 22-hour commute back to Ely.

Kali’s adventure involved many with ties to the Ely area.

Mark Zupancich, at Zup’s Fishing Resort on Lac LaCroix, heard that some of his guests had seen a dog. The dog was skittish, but several people had left out food.

Zupancich was concerned that a dog, up in that area, might have been separated from canoeists who were in trouble. Rebecca Falls has been the scene of multiple drownings.

“You never think that someone would just leave a dog in the wilderness,” Zupancich said. “We were worried that a canoeist might be in trouble, hurt somewhere.”

Zupancich contacted guides he knew who were working in the area, and also mentioned it to Ely guide Roger Skraba, who had called him on a different topic that day. Skraba was out with fishing clients, having set up camp on Hilly Island on Lac LaCroix.

Literally a few minutes later, a dog wandered into Skraba’s campsite.

“I had my dog with me, she barked and the dog went back into the woods,” Skraba said, “but soon the dog came back.”

Skraba fed Kali leftover fish and hash browns. She was timid at first, Skraba said, but soon realized she was safe and sound.

“She is one of the smartest dogs I have ever seen,” he said. “She was in good shape, no bruises or sores.”

Skraba isn’t sure how Kali got out to the island.

“We were three islands out from the mainland,” he said. “So either she swam island to island, or swam across the whole bay.”

Kali made a huge impression on both Skraba and his guests, one of whom had already volunteered to adopt her.

He said his own dog treated her with respect, letting her eat his dog food, and that she seemed to know her trials were over.

Skraba called Zup’s Fishing Camp to tell them he had the dog, safe, at his campsite, and Mark sent a towboat and brought Kali to the LaCroix Ranger Station.

“That is one lucky dog,” Zupancich said. “Now people are calling me the dog whisperer.”

In the meantime, a longtime Widji friend of the Karekens who worked for Voyageurs National Park had contacted the station in Lac LaCroix, asking them to keep their eye out for the dog. When the friendly, long-haired golden dog showed up at the LaCroix Ranger Station, they knew who to call.

Kali’s adventure didn’t end there. She spent a couple of days with the rangers, and got to visit all the stations in that portion of the Quetico.

The rangers set the pickup point for Prairie Portage on July 19. When it was time for Kali to board the float plane, she was skittish about getting into the dog kennel they had brought along, and instead sat herself up in the passenger seat, where she contentedly stayed for the entire flight, looking out the window.

In the meantime, Dave connected with his Widji friend, who had offered to help with the pickup. LaTourell’s outfitting service motored them over to the portage.

“We got there and started walking up the portage,” Dave said, “and we could hear that the Beaver float plane had just landed.”

Kali got out of the plane, and started down the portage trail.

“I called to her,” said Dave. “She looked up at me and stopped. I called her again and she started running.”

The reunion left everyone teary-eyed.

“She was making puppy noises and had her paws up on my shoulders,” he said. “It was like she couldn’t believe it.”

“We were so certain she wasn’t coming back,” Dave said. “We were in mourning. We had lost our best girl.”

“Then,” he said, “a miracle happened.”

No one can explain how she survived the trip down the falls, or how she managed to survive ten days in the wilderness where wolves are common. Her poop, the rangers noted, had fur in it, so perhaps she hunted squirrels or chipmunks. Kali also likes hunting for frogs, Dave noted.

“I wish she could tell me her story,” Dave said. “When my son was young, he said, “one of his favorite movies was ‘The Incredible Journey,’” the classic true-life tale of three pets who find their way home after their owners move far away. Now the family had their own incredible journey story.

Dave had stopped by The Timberjay office on his way back home to North Carolina, with a very content Kali in tow, to share his story.

“This will take a long time to process and understand,” he said. “Grieving and then rejuvenation.”

He noted how easy it is to take what we have for granted, and how quickly life can change. Dave has experienced tragedy in the Boundary Waters before. Several years ago, he found a dead body near Sturgeon Lake.

“The man had been dead for days,” he said. “That experience made me not want to stick around to find Kali. We were so certain that nobody could have survived those falls.”

With Kali safe and sound, the two spent the night in Ely, resting up for the trip back home. Son Zach was still out in the Boundary Waters, with no clue that Kali had been found, and would be back home when Zach got home from camp. Dave had a new scare on Wednesday night, when powerful storms passed through the Boundary Waters, close to the route his son’s trip was taking.

“I know that my drive to and from Ely is more dangerous, statistically,” he said.

Dave said he couldn’t wait to tell Zach the news, when he got back into camp on July 25.

Long ties to BWCA

Dave Kareken has basically grown up on the water and in the wilderness. Raised in the Twin Cities, he was a long-time Camp Widjiwagan camper and then a counselor. He met his wife Joy when they were both working as whitewater instructors/guides in North Carolina. The two have a 15-year old son, Zachary, who now does annual summer trips at Widji.

The couple now both work as teachers, Dave teaching graphic arts at a community college and Joy teaching elementary school. Their teaching schedule leaves them plenty of time for adventures in the summer, and most years this means a trip to the Boundary Waters/Quetico area, where they hope someday to retire.

“I feel differently about what the universe does now,” he said. “We will be back for sure.”

Dave also noted that one of the most amazing parts of this story was the people, both old friends and new, that they encountered.

“There was so much generosity and love shared with us,” he said.