Family Wetetlcly I May 19, 1963
I FOUND
Pi'ot Chuck Hamilton spotted the
Their plane crashed in sub-Arctic wilderness, food gone,
and rescue abandoned, a lay preacher and a young
woman found strength in the Bible; here is the
incredible story as told by the man who heard it first
the bush pilot who rescued them By CHUCK HAMILTON
Aeroplane LAKE was a smooth stretch
.of blinding white in an otherwise
pine- and scrub-covered expanse of
mountains. As the lake loomed larger on
my horizon, I dipped my Super Cub to
about 300 feet, remembering the last
instructions of my partner, Hal Komish.
Together we operate B. C. Yukon Air Service,
Ltd., a charter flying company with a small fleet
ofaraft based at Watson Lake, Yukon Territory.
"Take a look at the lake. Chuck," Hal had told
me. "Those Indians may need more help."
A couple of months before, Hal had been flying
over the same area and had spotted a "Help" sign
trampled in the snow. He had landed on the lake
and found an Indian family whose new baby des
perately needed milk.
In the Yukon, where Hal and I fly, families
may live 50 or 100 miles apart, and when winter
closes in they become locked in a sub-Arctic
prison of waist-deep snow, 40-below-iero tem
peratures, and winds of 40 miles an hour. All of
us have learned that to survive we must help each
other. That's why Hal wanted me to see if we
could help that Indian family any more. It was
nothing extraordinary; bush pilots do it regularly
"Faith kept me alive,"
and, when in trouble themselves, know that help
is never far off.
Now it was my turn to see what we could do.
It was about 11 :30 Sunday, March 24, and I was
flying an Indian trapper named Jack George to
Terminus Mountain, the last of the Rockies; I was
also bringing supplies to one of the region's most
famous big-game outfitters, Skook Davidson.
I passed over the frozen lake slowly. The bril
liant sun, low as it always is up here in winter,
glared harshly on the stark snow, but George's
eyes and mine were accustomed to it. The snow
lay undisturbed beneath us, no sign of trouble. I
figured I had better start for Terminus before
that low sun spent itself. First,though, one more
sweep.
It seems strange now, but in talking about
people in danger Hal and I hadn't mentioned one
case that had been big news around our home
base at Watson Lake seven weeks before. A pilot
and a young woman, both from the United States,
had taken oft from White Horse, capital of the
Yukon Territory, for a 600-mile trip to Fort St.
John, British Columbia. They had not been heard
of since. The Royal Canadian Air Force and bush
pilot had scoured the flight path. No trace of the
plane had been spotted. Since then, the worst of
Arctic winters had fallen on the area. There
downed Americans first.
THE GIRL
'J
LA j
Helen Klaben cried when she was rescued.
wasn't much reason to talk about the lost flyers
now: like others before them, the frozen wilder
ness had swallowed them up.
I made my second sweep, but again nothing. I
started to pull up at the southeast end of the lake.
As I did, a meadow rushed beneath us. It was
crisscrossed with the dark outlines of windfalls
timber toppled by fierce winds but there was
something else that caught my eye! An orderly
scar on the surface of snow. I looked down. It
was a huge SOS.
"What does that mean?" George asked.
"It's a distress signal! Keep looking!"
We could see nobody. I tried to follow tracks
leading from the SOS but lost them in a thicket
I circled, found another foot track, and lost it,
too. I came back again, determined to locate the
distressed party if it took the waning daylight
hours. Then a flash of light caught my eye. I
looked down.
"Somebody's flashing a mirror at us I see
him ! Must be an Indian."
W St Signs of Life
I flew back to the SOS looking for his family.
Instead a wisp of smoke caught our attention a
couple of miles beyond. As we approached, George
and I strained to see against the piercing white
and deep shadows of snow and timberland, and I
checked off my observations against George's so
my report would be accurate.
"I see a figure near the smoke a squaw?"
"Looks like one," George confirmed.
"There's a crude tent."
"Yeh."
"And a fire."
"Not a cooking fire signal fire."
I couldn't risk landing with a passenger and
fully loaded plane, so I waggled my wings, hoping
the woman would realize she wasn't being aban
doned. Then I flew George to Terminus Mountain
LOST IN
' -
:fl'
Ralph Flares tpent three days tramping SOS in
and unloaded Davidson's supplies. By 3:30 I was
flying above the woman again. She waved franti
cally at me. No smoke obscured the tent now, and
I was surprised to see it was no more than a
shelter cloth of bright yellow fabric with Wack
markings. I tried to read them "N588..." The
fabric was ripped after the last "8."
What was the number of that lost plane? I was
almost sure it was "N58856." The Indians must
have found the wreckage and were using parts
for shelter. But Indians would have reported a
crash. Could these two be survivors? That was
even more unlikely.
As I climbed, I spotted airplane wreckage far
ther up the mountain, then about five miles closer
to the lake I located the man again, still flashing
his mirror from between lengthening shadows.
I radioed Watson Lake and told what I had
seen. My receiver was bad that day, and the only
reply I could understand was "Roger." But I
sensed they were feeling the same anxiety and
bafflement as I.
The closest 1 could land the Super Cub was on
Aeroplane Lake another five miles northwest of
the man. Two Indian trappers, Charlie Porter and
Louie Boya, met me, and I told them to go inland
with dogs and sleds as soon as possible: I could be
back at dawn with help.
Watson Lake was humming with excitement
hn T t there. Pilots and hangers-on knotted
around while I reported to the search and rescue
unit of the RCAF and the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police. Together, we developed plan.
At dawn, Hal would fly our Super Cub to the
lake with Mountie Constable George Lepky. I
would fly there with Corporal Steve Pentiluk in a
Cessna 180. From the lake, the Mounties, trappers,
and Hal would search for the man. I would take
the small, maneuverable Super Cub, land in a
""meadow about three miles from the woman, and
snowshoe up to her. Other bush pilots had been
THE YUKON
KHRil MS.
vim
17-TTr i rfft 7
r
snow.
Helen shows Hamilton the makeshift
ordered by the Mounties to stand by on the
ground in case we needed help.
By 4 :30 a.m. Monday, we were warming our en
gines (it was then 10 below). Already news wires
had flashed stories of "possible" survivors of
N58856. The girl was Helen Klaben, 21, of Brook
lyn, N. Y.; her pilot was Ralph Flores, a Mormon
lay preacher and father of six children in San
Bruno, Calif. Both had been returning to the
States after working in Alaska.
I kind of regretted those news stories. In
Brooklyn and San Bruno, families were hoping
again. It was tragic that their loved ones had
vanished In a void of wilderness. It waa even
more cruel, though, that we should be giving
them false hope. And we were almost certain that
was the case.
Too Many Odd Against Survival
From the wreckage I had seen, the couple must
have smashed hard into the mountainside. Even
if they had lived, they had been isolated for 60
days. They had carried virtually no food in a
barren land impossible to live off, and during a
winter which was a killer in itself.
I couldn't help thinking how my own wife
Marion would react to such premature reports
if I had been missing and, worse, how she would
feel when they were inevitably scotched.
By 6:30 I was taking ofT from Aeroplane Lake
in the Super Cub, fearing I would be the person to
smash the unexpected hopes of the Klaben and
Flores families. I buzzed low over the meadow,
looking for a place to set down. A guide had ad
vised against landing there: the windfalls were
plentiful and even the smooth stretches of snow
might deceptively cloak dangerous obstructions.
But the plane didn't need much run space, and I
put the skis down gingerly on a strip of neat
snow, joggled a little and slid to a smooth stop.
A private pilot, Jack McCallum, already had
m w f
tent that provided shelter curing ou-aay oruw.
landed nearby but had been unable to locate the
woman immediately. I had flown over the terrain
enough Sunday, however, to know where to pick
up a footpath, presumably tracked through the
snow by the man. I strapped on snowshoes and
followed the trail.
The climb was steadily upward, and I was
slowed by snow three feet deep, tangled with
brush and blocked by fencelike rows of fallen
pine. After an hour or so, I labored up a ridge
and looked across a barren knoll to a triangle of
yellow. I called out. A shapeless figure lifted it
self from the ground and waved unsteadily to me.
Jack McCallum had just arrived at the scene, too.
The figure slumped down now, burying head in
arms and crying in violent, body-shaking sobs.
But I had glimpsed the face. It was a white wo
man. Helen Klaben was miraculously- alive.
When I reached her, she lifted her head.
"You've saved me." Her voice waa choked. "I'd
love to kiss you, but I can't walk." Her feet were
wrapped in layer after layer of cloth; she must
have been wearing five or six pairs of slacks, and
a heavy scarf was pulled around her wind-burned
face. She signaled me to sit down, and when I did
she kissed me, and crying welled up in me, too.
A Problem I How to 0t Holon Out?
I had to determine two things now: how badly
was Helen injured, and how could I get her down
to the plane? But Helen wiped away tears and
rushed on :
"Ralph! He's out there! Did you see him?"
I assured her that he probably had already
been rescued, and she sighed, "Oh, thank God!
It was his faith, you know. His faith set the ex
ample for me to follow. That's what saved me."
She thanked God for being alive, for being
rescued, for saving Ralph but again and again
she thanked God for "letting her see things." I
didn't understand that at first. Later I waa to
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