The 50th anniversary of the great battle between an old man and an ice storm on the inland sea will be coming up on Thanksgiving. It was the day before the holiday that Helmer Aakvik, Hovland, Minn., went out in his open skiff to try to find his neighbor, "The Kid," as a great storm desended on Lake Superior. His epic struggle for survival as he and his boat faced huge waves, freezing temperatures and ice became the tale I wrote about in Broken Seas. I later wrote a magazine feature that won the top boating writers award for 2007. I'll be at the North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum in Tofte,Minn., on Nov. 29 to talk about my research on "the old man" and his epic survival tale.
BREE'S BLOG: In The Wake of the Fitzgerald