Campers Rescued From Oak Island

July 8, 2011

Submitted by Myra Foster

   Acting Chief Ranger at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

     On June 22, 2011, Apostle Islands National Park search and rescue (SAR) team members rescued 14 Camp Amnicon youths and guides from Oak Island, located in Lake Superior. The campers were on Oak Island Site A which is a site that is 1.5 miles from the nearest dock, when a severe thunderstorm with gale force winds came ashore. These gale force winds prohibited the campers from paddling their Montreal Canoe (36 ft) back to the mainland. The youths were wet and cold with one youth in the beginning stages of hypothermia. The park had an 1 hour and 15 minutes, during a break in the severe weather, to get the youths off the island.

     Park Volunteers Gene and Kandee Rosburg hiked the 1.5 miles to the campsite to attend to the campers while park maintenance staff, using two 25-foot Packman Munson landing crafts, rescued the 14 youths in 5 foot seas. The vessels were able to slide up to the beach near the campsite, drop the vessel's ramp and board all the campers without incident. The vessel's captains were Maintenance Division employees Dave Wilkins and Jason Charette with crew of Steve Witt and Tommy Richardson. Park EMTs and SAR team members waited at the mainland to administer first aid and take the campers to the heated maintenance facility where dry blankets were wrapped around each camper.

     After speaking with camp leaders, the park learned that the campers had all grown up in refugee camps in Somalia, Asia and Eastern Europe. Despite the rough weather campers were saddened to leave their campsite because they had never experienced such a vast amount of clean, fresh water. The campers were appreciative of being rescued by the government.

Form & Function at its Finest

The William E. Munson Company is an internationally recognized leader in the design and construction of high quality custom aluminum boats. For over 30 years, Bill Munson has been a pioneer in the welded aluminum boat building industry, having designed and built over 2000 custom aluminum vessels.

At Munson, form follows function, and function is whatever the buyer has in mind. We have developed a library of stock hulls in various sizes and configurations, as well as subassembiles, enabling the buyer to "mix-and-match" the many possible combinations of design elements, while a fully integrated CAD/CAM operation enables us to manufacture a custom one-of-kind vessel in minimum time at a competitive price.

Munson Boats.com has been developed to act as a guide and wish list for the professional boater. Both mono hull and catamaran designs are available in standard hull sizes ranging from 21 to 54 feet in length. Larger sizes are available upon request. Over 300 standard outfitting options allow us to develop a custom vessel that best meets your requirements and application.

Our clients say it best... "Munson has done an excellent job building the ultimate high-speed aluminum catamaran transport/hunting vessel for Alaskan Adventure Tours.The workmanship on this boat is second to none. With over 25 years of operating boats in the unpredictable waters of Alaska, this is the safest most comfortable auxiliary vessel that I ever had the pleasure to operate."

Captain Darren Byler
Alaskan Adventure Tours
Cordova, Alaska

Copyright © 2009. Designed by Munson Boats