The Future Just Happens Day by Amazing Day

January 11, 2025
Jack R. Noel

It all began in June of 1968 when I was laid off my job at a defense contractor. I had two weeks of paid vacation remaining so I decided to ask a good friend if he wanted to go with me on a six-day canoe / camping trip on the Pierre Marquette and Pine Rivers up north.

Everything went well the first three days and the canoe livery put us in at the farthest upstream point on the Pine River at about 8:40 PM, less than 30 minutes before sunset. We knew we must find a suitable campsite before the sun set and set off in our fully loaded canoe at a somewhat fast pace. Minutes kept passing as we paddled downstream without seeing a suitable place to put in. Then as we came around a bend I suddendly saw a red-haired woman get to her feet on the bank.

For a second, I couldn’t believe my eyes, I knew the woman whom I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. I did get an invitation to her wedding but decided not to attend. That was the last I had heard from her, I assumed we’d never see each other again.

In the seconds we began to pass the couple on the riverbank, I regained my wits, whipped off my hat and yelled, “Peggy! It’s me, Jack!.” She let out a squeal of instant recognition as I told my friend to start back-peddling hard. We had found the campsite we’d been so anxiously seeking and already had two occupants, one of whom I had known quite well.

Worth emphasizing here is that, if we had kept going, it would have meant the next landing site was the state park two hours farther downstream. The Pine is not a river one can navigate in the dark without encountering serious obstacles like log jams and rock-strewn rapids.

This was one of the most amazing coincidences I’ve ever heard of. That one impossible event led to years of friendships and more trips on the Pine.