Three Men in a Rubber Boat

Darcy Williamson
River Tales of Idaho

“The trip was the idea of Len Miracle, a journalist. He queried the editor of Field and Stream magazine about writing a story on a trip down the Bruneau. River trips were common in Idhao. But no white man had ever made it all the way through the Bruneau Canyon. There had been several attempts, but all had failed.

One thing that made the Bruneau trip hazardous was that in one seventy- five-mile stretch, there were only three points where the canyon rim could be reached on foot. That complicated rescue or escape.

The Field and Stream editor liked Len Miracle’s idea and gave him a go ahead on the project.”

“All the cooking and eating gear and most of the food and toilet paper were lost in the mishap. All the kitchen matches were wet and there only three waterproof matches. One was used to start a fire to dry out the sleeping bags.”

“The next morning, a second waterproof match was used to build a fire to cook some more beans. Gone were the carefree attitudes of young college graduates. They wondered what additional surprises awaited them downstream, and how many miles they would have to travel to reach Bruneau.”

“That afternoon they drifted past the ruins of an old gold mining sluice box. The canyon floor was about 100 yards wide. They spotted grazing sheep and immediately thought they were near the end of their journey. Then they noticed the sheep had long tails and realized the animals probably had been captives of the canyon for generations.”

“On the fifth day, their luck improved when Jonathan Hughes shot a deer with one of the pistols. Len Miracle butchered it and they loaded the meat on the raft. They spent the rest of the day fighting their way through shallows, fallen logs, rocks and brush. That night they had trouble finding a place on the bank flat enough to camp. As they roasted the venison, the flames from the fire cast unearthly shadows on the sheer canyon walls.

Hunkered over chunks of dripping meat, the men looked primeval. Their morale was as tattered as their clothing. Gnawing on their unseasoned and undercooked meat, they speculated about their location and the distance to civilization.

On the sixth day of their ‘three to four day’ journey, the raft hit a sharp rock about noon. The travelers were exhausted from two morning portages and frustrated from raft patching. They searched the canyon walls for an escape route, deciding it would be better to give up and flee across the desert than to endure another mile on the Bruneau. But there was no escape from their prison. As they waited for the patch to dry, they ate their last can of soup and some of the venison.

But when they returned to the river, the situation improved. The canyon grew wider and in the distance they spotted what appeared to be a road on the canyon wall! With spirits soaring they pushed on as the water grew deeper.

Suddenly they found themselves floating through a wheat field. A farmhouse came into view. They had reached the end of their historic journey.”