QUETICO — After six "brutal" portages on an injured knee and two days of waiting alone in remote area of Quetico Park, Mike Borger finally called for help.
A helicopter arrived the next morning to extract the veteran paddler, who had badly sprained his knee 27 days and about 400 kilometres into a 40-day solo canoe trip.
Carrying his canoe and an 80-pound pack, Borger said he lost his footing in a "boulder garden."
The fall left him with a painful knee injury. Despite the setback, he gritted his way through six portages before reaching the next campsite, where he stayed for two days, hoping to recover.
"The last portage was 460 meters, which really isn't that long, but it took me two hours to complete. And the pain was intense," he said. "I managed to find the campsite and, with difficulty, set up my camp up."
"It took me 15 minutes just to get from my tent to the lake to make coffee," Borger recalled. "That’s when I started thinking, I could be in trouble.”
Borger said he began to reach out for help on the second night at the site. A friend monitoring his progress from afar coordinated with the park superintendent and the Ontario Provincial Police. Using an inReach satellite device, Borger received instructions to have it powered on at 8 a.m. for updates.
“I shut the thing off and went to bed. When I turned it back on in the morning, I had a series of messages. The chopper was already on its way.” this was at 5:30 am.
The OPP rescue team arrived around 7 a.m. but faced challenges landing due to the dense wilderness, he said.
“They flew around for 35 minutes trying to figure out how to get the officers down. Eventually, they dropped them in the water on the other side of the point I was on,” Borger said.
Armed with chainsaws, the officers clear-cut the area for an hour to make a helicopter landing possible.
“They were incredibly professional. I was really impressed,” he added.
The incident marked the second time in nine months that Borger had to call for help during a wilderness trip. On Sept. 11, 2024, during a fly-in trip to Blackbirch Lake near Nakina, tragedy struck when his close friend, Adam Dempsey, suffered a fatal heart attack while they were out on a boat.
"The last thing he said to me was: 'I shouldn't have eaten that cinnamon bun for breakfast this morning'. And then he fell over in the boat and it was ultimately a huge heart attack."
Borger attempted CPR for over 20 minutes, he said, but Dempsey could not be revived.
“It was a traumatic experience,” Borger said. “I understand what post-traumatic stress is now after that happened. That’s exactly why I embarked on these solo trips.”
Just days after losing his friend, on Sept. 26, he set out on a 27-day solo canoe trip to Quetico. His recent journey, setting out on May 15, was his second major solo venture since his friend's passing.
He was airlifted to the Thunder Bay District Regional Hospital for treatment and returned home to Sault Ste. Marie the next day, on June 12.
One painful consequence of the evacuation was having to leave behind his beloved canoe.
But through the "magic of social media" it looks like he will see it again soon.
A fellow paddler reached out on Facebook, said Borger, offering to reroute his upcoming trip in July from Wabanaki to Quetico to retrieve the canoe.
“I love my canoe. I need my canoe,” Borger said.
“He told me: ‘I’ll make this trip, a rescue mission for your canoe.’ That would honestly be a miracle.”
Later this year, in September 2025, Borger and Dempsey’s friends and family plan to return to the Blackbirch Lake outpost to install a memorial plaque at the site where Dempsey passed away.
After calling for help, Borger said "in some ways, I feel like I failed, but that's just my bruised ego talking." He said he plans to keep doing solo trips and plans to return to Quetico Park — once he has his canoe.
