DIARY ENTRY 2
Brian decides his best chance is to come down on the shallow water. His preparations are cut short when the plane’s engine cuts out and forced to nose the plane down.
He crash lands in the lake but is not too badly injured, sore, throbbing head. “He claws his way to the surface”
He has nothing but the clothes he is wearing and the hatchet hanging from his belt.
Cold and disoriented, he is attached by a swarm of biting mosquitos.
He is sunburnt and thirsty.
He pictures the frantic behaviour of his parents, the search planes until he would be found.
Hunger now becomes overwhelming.
He remembers the need to remain positive and motivated as advised by an English Teacher, a Mr Perpich, he had once had.
The hatchet on his belt gives him some hope.
He takes stock of what he does have, sturdy tennis shoes, some items of clothing, smashed watch.
Wild animals threatens him.
Storms he endures.
He finds a scooped out hollow in the rocky ridge, providing an overhand that could be used as shelter.
He finds some strange berries to eat, which make him extremely sick, suffering vomiting and diarrhoea. He is drained of strength. “gut-berries”.
He then finds a raspberry patch, where he spots a bear. He panics and runs but then realises the bear wasn’t a threat.
Brian constructs a shelter and a porcupine enters during the night and injures him with its quills. He throws the hatchet at it and sparks off the rock wall. He has a hideous pain in his leg. He has eight quills sticking into the calf of his leg.
He tries to light a $20 bill but it doesn’t work. Then remembers the white-paper bark from the birches. He eventually learns how to create fire. He feels his life is more in control, “I have a friend”. “I will not let you go out…not ever”. The clouds of smoke can be a signal.
He must be more in harmony with the natural world which is now his world.
He finds a chamber of 17 turtle eggs.
A plane flies overhead but does not see him. He drops into a pit of despair, he feels alone.
Brian is so depressed he contemplates suicide and harms himself with his hatchet.