Survival in a Michigan Upper Peninsula Snowstorm

by Larry Crider
(Michigan)

This is not my story, but my Father's. He cannot tell it, so I will. In the late fifties, my Father, Henry, was deer hunting in November in the Michigan UP. A snowstorm suddenly blew in from Lake Superior and white out conditions came on quickly. My Father spotted a large fallen tree and immediately headed toward it. He used his hunting knife to hack the soft interior out of the tree and crawled inside with his rifle. He then clawed the soft hacked insides of the tree up toward the opening to mostly block the storm. He stayed awake and used his rifle, a Winchester Model 70 30-06 to poke and clear away the snow to keep an airway open. Before morning, the storm had stopped and being warm inside the tree, with his Woolrich red and black plaid flannels, he slept until dawn. In the morning, he walked back to the camp and had breakfast. Everyone at the camp had been worried that he would not survive. He survived WWII fighting in the Phillipines and in India. His instinct to survive helped him come through a night in a Michigan blizzard in the north woods. He knew enough to seek shelter before he was too tired or conditions too severe to make it work.