Some years a go I traded an old fiberglass canoe that I owned for a 12’ homemade plywood boat. It was one foot deep and 6’ wide. I used to load it on top of my 68 Ford and I would go fishing after work at some of the smaller lakes in the area! 

Along with the boat, I had picked up a Neptune outboard, which was an antique when I bought it. It had an air-cooled two-cycle engine that you started by wrapping a rope around the flywheel on top and give it a pull. When it ran it made a lot of noise!

The fishing hadn’t been too good, and I was trying to think of a new lake I could try. I remembered my dad had told me that when he was a kid his uncle used to go to Ward Lake south of the Deerwood shortcut past Wolf Lake.

I loaded my boat and motor and headed for that lake. When I got to the landing, I put the boat in behind the beaver dam, went up the creek into the lake a short distance, and began fishing. I was fishing that day for sunfish, but right away I caught a small Northern. I had the lake all to myself.

I started working my way up the west side of the lake thinking how beautiful it was here with the sun shining on the trees that were on the east shore. About a half hour later and halfway up the lake I could hear oars banging against the side of an aluminum boat. Someone else was going to try their luck on the lake. I could only make out one person in the boat as it came from the creek into the lake.

I kept working my way up that west side stopping every now and then trying to find those sunfish, but no luck. Occasionally, I would start my motor and try to get closer to the lily pads as my boat would drift out from the shoreline. When I would get too close to them, they would get wrapped around the propeller and shear the pin that made the propeller turn. I only had three pins with me that day and I had already broken two of them.

While I was fishing, I sort of kept an eye out for that other boat on the other end of the lake, but by the time I had made it to the north end of the lake I didn’t see it anymore. Still no sunfish, but now I had started to save a few of those Northern for pickling. I put them on a nylon stringer I had just bought. It had a ring on one end and a sharp metal point on the other end.

I had finally used my last shear pin and was thinking to myself that I had a long row to get back to the landing, as the wind would be against me. Occasionally, I thought I could hear a noise in the wind, but every time I looked around I saw nothing.

As it was getting towards evening, clouds took over the sky and it was getting cooler out. I was watching the sky to the west looking at the sun shining through a few holes in the clouds. As a ray of sunlight traveled across the lake I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye to the south, but when I looked down the lake I saw nothing. The sunlight had passed and I could barely make the shoreline out.

Well, I knew that whatever had made the flash had to be down there, so I kept watching that shoreline. The wind was gusting from time to time and then as I was watching I saw something move in the water, then nothing! As I kept watching I saw it again and this time I could see it was a boat.

My heart began to race, and I knew that it was swinging too fast in the wind to have someone in it. I put my fishing rod down, pulled my fish in that were on the stringer, and tried to row towards the boat across the lake, but the wind was too strong. I went farther away from it instead of closer. With my shear pins gone, I took the fish off the stringer and let them go, then I cut the metal point off the end, and I jammed it in the hole on the propeller. It worked and I was on my way.

As I got closer to the boat, I couldn’t see anyone around. I was sure that whoever had been in it had drowned! Then as the wind swung it again I could see the back of the boat. There were hands on the handles, and I could make out a face just above the water. I pulled up alongside that boat, it was a man in his late 60’s. He was wearing a long dark wool coat like a navy pea jacket and heavy boots.

He told me that he did not think I was ever going to come. He had heard my motor start 3 or 4 times and each time it kept getting farther away and finally it didn’t start any more. He did not know how long he had been in the water, but it had been a long time, and he could not feel his arms and legs anymore as they were frozen and numb. He had yelled and yelled for help but figured I could not hear him and then he could not yell any more because of the cold.  

He told me he was finally just going to let go as he was thinking to himself, “I can’t hang on anymore!”

Then just as he was letting go, he heard that motor start again but this time it was getting closer! He said he did not know what he was standing on, but it had felt like a tree.

He also said he knew that the whole lake bottom was muck as he had fished there for many years.

I asked him why he didn’t just drift to shore, and he said the anchor was down in the front of the boat and he was afraid to move from where he was standing.

I told him to hang on and I would pull him to shore, as my boat was not big enough for him to get into without swamping. I found his anchor rope, hooked it to my boat, and pulled him to shore, which was floating bog.

I pulled my boat up onto the bog and then his. I got onto his boat, went back to him, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him up onto the bog.    

When he felt a little better, I got him into my boat so he could drip off a little and I turned his boat over and bailed it out. When I got it back in the water I turned around, he had his wallet out.

He said all he could give me was 5 dollars, but I told him to put his money away

I told him his life was worth more than money and he said, “I guess somebody thinks so.”

We exchanged names and shook hands goodbye, and he took off in his boat. A short time later, I heard a truck start and knew that he had made it to the landing OK.

That was the first and last time I ever went fishing on Ward Lake. I went home that night with a good feeling in my heart! 

I had asked him during our conversation how he had fallen in the lake, and he told me he had just bought a lure and didn’t want to lose it, so he stood up and leaned over the boat and the wind came up and he fell in.

Sometimes God puts us in the right place at the right time and I know I was meant to go fishing there that day. At the time this happened I was 22 years old.

This fellow lived just down the road. Ward Lake is called Loon Lake today. I have gone past where this fellow lived many times through the years and a couple years back in 2019 (I was 67 years old) I was driving by on my motorcycle and I saw someone in the yard, so I pulled in! 

I said hello to this young fellow and introduced myself and asked him if he knew the ole boy who had lived here years ago? He asked me which old fellow? His dad and his grandpa had lived here!

I said your grandpa is Roland Leikvoll?! He smiled and said, “Well, we all have the same name! I’m the 3^rd.”

I asked him if he had ever heard a story about his grandpa falling into Ward lake years ago and getting fished out?

He looked at me and said, “I never thought I would hear this from another living soul!” The only person I have ever heard this story from is my mom! My dad passed away many years ago!

I wrote this story down and gave it to him for his mom. 

He told me, “My mom won’t believe I ran into the fellow who pulled Grandpa out of the lake.”