in one of the most remote in unforgiving
wilderness is in the world to strangers
sit huddled in a makeshift tent they've
built the man and the young woman are
freezing and on the verge of death a
snow storm batters their makeshift tent
the wind blast seemed to the pair like
nature itself has a vendetta against
them they're miles away from any town
and what they don't know is that as they
sit and wait the media is saying there
is little hope the missing pair will be
found alive the storm abates and
suddenly the woman sees a plane in the
sky but her hope is crushed as it fades
into the distance in the name of God she
says please come back she's well aware
she doesn't have long to live the story
starts at the beginning of the 1960s a
decade that would become renowned for
its decadence in colorful youth culture
just prior to that decade there was the
beef movement a counterculture that
enshrined something that would become
known as the road trip with Jack Kerouac
s' book on the road inspiring many young
Americans to take off and explore their
own country from end to end and that's
just what a young Jewish girl from New
York named Helen Clayman wanted to do to
follow in the footsteps of people who
turned away from convention and instead
went looking for adventure when Clayman
was just 20 years old she saw an ad in
the newspaper asking if anyone wanted to
share the gas costs and take a car all
the way to Fairbanks Alaska she replied
and the to set off any long journey
after a few months in Alaska she knew
where she wanted to explore next and
that was the mystical East she wasn't
sure where she'd go exactly maybe India
maybe Hong Kong but before that she had
to get to a destination to take a flight
across the world that destination was
San Francisco a city on the verge of a
Cultural Revolution early in 1963 Clavin
met a 41 year old Mexican American
amateur pilot by the name of Ralph
Flores he was an aircraft mechanic that
hailed from California and he too wanted
to get back home and leave Alaska the
pair agreed to share the expenses of the
journey and off they went to their first
destination which was the capital of the
Yukon Territory Whitehorse the most
populated place in that wild part of the
world
they had another stop after that and
that was at Fort st. John in British
Columbia it was winter and bitterly cold
snowstorms raged and the plane was
grounded for three days
all single-engine airplane couldn't hope
to fly over such an unforgiving
territory in such bad conditions
nonetheless with the weather warning
still present the two took off again
into the sky their next landing would be
anything but smooth the pair flew four
hours and strong winds the plane being
tossed around like a dandelion seed in a
strong breeze words could hardly see
anything with the snow blasting against
the plane he and Clayton knew they
somehow had to get out of that storm so
Flores attempted to get above the clouds
and out of danger his plan was to come
back down and find the Alaska Highway
which would lead him to the airport that
was the thing he needed the road to get
his bearings because being an amateur he
didn't quite understand the instruments
in the aircraft on top of that he hadn't
even packed emergency supplies on board
in case of a crash there were no real
tools not much in terms of food supplies
nothing to keep someone warm and not
even a gun in case they came up against
a rather hungry animal the Yukon is full
of bears small ones large ones and
utterly fearsome ones they at least had
a knife it was a time of desperation and
Clavin started to lose her cool she knew
that the pilot was totally lost but he
refused to admit that then she suddenly
saw him mountainside and some trees and
she knew they were going to crash she
said to herself okay Helen here it comes
and it came with a bang she closed her
eyes and just hoped for the best and
when she opened them she was alive the
plane had landed at the side of a
mountain close to the Yukon British
Columbia border she had a broken arm and
she had some broken ribs and a fractured
jaw there was nothing but mountains and
trees around and snow covered everything
just walking around was an effort
because the temperature at times would
go down to negative 45 degrees Celsius
they huddled in the wreckage of the
plane to escape the blistering cold
frostbite was a certainty in these
conditions if they stayed out too long
in the open as days went by
search parties flew over the skies and
looked for the parent but it was
incredibly difficult to see anything in
between the trees when everything is
covered with snow they literally had
nothing to eat after they finished off
some cans of sardines tuna fruit and
some crab
there were no supplies at all after that
and they were only ten days in the one
important thing they could do to survive
was to melt snow for water they had a
box of matches and so could make a fire
with both of them and pain from their
injuries and without the equipment to
hunt they just sat and waited and
starved day by day the pounds came off
as their bodies burned their own fat
reserves Flores did try and make
something that looked like a slingshot
but it was useless and he soon gave up
on hundred rabbits they did have another
thing though and in a way you might call
that an emergency supply for the
religious mind it was a Bible something
Flores took everywhere with him since
he'd converted to the Church of Jesus
Christ of latter-day saints he was a
devout Mormon he told flavin that this
crash they'd experienced had some
significance in regard to the bigger
picture of things he told her to read
the Bible and they would be saved she
had to convert each day they heard
planes rumbling overhead and each day
Clayton continued reading the Bible
hoping her devout accomplice was right
about his God he actually told her that
if she read the whole thing and then
accepted the divinity of Jesus Christ
they would be saved
she wasn't exactly comforted by this and
didn't believe him but hey there wasn't
that much reading material in the middle
of nowhere weeks now passed and they
made a discovery they found toothpaste
and that suddenly started looking tasty
each day they squeezed the tube and
gratefully swallowed the minty cream
they knew it wasn't really sustenance
but it was at least something to put in
their mouths they also had chewing gum
and they chewed that for weeks on end
things got desperate after a few weeks
and while they could at least keep
themselves a little bit warm with
insulation they made out of clothes and
cushions Clavin got serious frostbite
and then gangrene in her foot she could
now hardly move at all she was all but
ready to give up the ghost and had lost
about a third of her body weight for as
she's told her to keep reading that
Bible and to never give up hope of
rescue still as time went by even he
seemed to have given up on one of those
planes in the sky seeing them flores
then told clave in that sense he could
walk he would go and try to find
civilization he walked off in the woods
leaving her behind to her own thoughts
she decided to write about what happened
but soon gave up on that when it started
to sound like an epitaph she wasn't
ready to sign off just
eight days later in florists came back
he told his dying companion that he had
at least found what looked like a
clearing and so humans might have been
there
there was also much more chance of
someone seeing them from the sky once
they were away from all the trees they
had to walk there and make a shack of
some sort it took hours to get there
Clayton's foot was badly infected now
and the pain of walking was unbearable
as they got closer to the clearing they
heard a noise like a humming in the
distance
Flores went in search of that noise and
then returned some time later he told
flavin he found a frozen pond and that
he'd written SOS in it and also etched
the shape of an arrow that pointed to
where they were he'd done this with the
snowshoes he'd made out of tree bark
he told Clayton he'd go out again with a
mirror and try to catch sight of the
pilot she didn't want to be alone again
but he assured her that it was the only
option now was there hope it was day 47
of their ordeal
a day after Clement had finished reading
the Bible and now we introduce you to a
man of the wild one Charles Chuck
Hamilton in March that year as those two
were freezing and starving to death he
was out in this plane trying to spot
animals to hunt he had a good eye for
that kind of thing
he spotted no moose that day but he did
see SOS written into what looked like a
frozen pond
he didn't immediately think about the
missing plane that had been weeks ago
and it wasn't something that was still
on his mind in fact he and his passenger
thought that the remark must have been
left by a trapper
seeing as trappers did sometimes find
themselves in difficulty in the wild at
the same time Clavin had seen the plane
in the sky she made a fire and
frantically through green pine on it
black smoke gushed into the sky surely
someone would see that she was now in
tears full of desperate joy ignoring the
pain in her foot Flores was out in the
woods trying to use the mirror to flash
sunlight back at the plane Hamilton
actually had to turn away from the black
smoke since it was so thick and heavy
but it was then he saw a man standing
with a mirror in his hands Hamilton
found a place to set down the plane near
a cabin on an airport lake he was about
six miles away from the pair trappers
were working at this cabin and that's
the noise the parrot / the trappers had
been cutting firewood with the chainsaw
all these men got together with their
dogs and set off to find the man with
the mirror because of the smoke Clavin
hadn't yet been seen Hammel
then left the trapars and said he'd
investigate from the sky again but now
that fire had died down when he looked
at where the fire had been he could just
make out a tent he then made a radio
call and said I think I found the lost
people night was now falling and so
Hamilton returned home hoping the
trappers had found those people the
media called him all night long but he
couldn't sleep anyway
thinking about the poor souls alone out
there at this point no one knew if there
was just one survivor or two since only
the man with a mirror had been seen
Hamilton on the guest the woman was the
source of the fire
the trappers actually did find Flores
that night but Clavin waited the whole
night alone at the shelter it was now
pitch-black and the rescue would have to
wait until morning Hamilton actually
turned to his wife and said what if
she's dead when I get there he flew off
before dawn and landed a couple miles
from where that tent was from there he
walked in and about one hour later
Clavin saw a Hulk of a man striding
toward her a man she said was pixie face
when he met her she embraced him and
cried and kissed his grizzled cheek
the brave woman said she could walk out
even with a terribly infected
frostbitten foot Hamilton responded that
saying if I can carry a moose out of the
woods I could carry you it took some
time though walking on snowshoes with a
woman on his back a frail woman at least
who now only weighed 200 pounds when
Clavin was finally taken to a hospital
the doctor said she wouldn't have lasted
one more night had they stayed another
night that SOS in the lake would have
been covered they were discovered in the
nick of time when Clavin was well enough
she met with a host of reporters to whom
she claimed hey I'm alive she was all
good except a few missing toes flavin
soon went back to Brooklyn and Flores
went home to his family in California
she never did convert and become a
Mormon but she later said the ordeal did
make her more spiritual the experience
she said helped her to find herself in
an interview she said most people expect
they'd not be able to cope with the
crisis and it was a great experience to
find out that I could flavin wrote a
book about what had happened and never
lost her sense of adventure traveling
through many regions of Asia and Europe
and the Americas
she died in 2018 aged 76 Flores was also
76 when he passed away in 1997 so we
guessed these two had one last
experience they could share the now old
Chuck Hamilton left the wilds and moved
to Victoria where he lives today with
his family he keeps a token of the event
and
basement a bit of the wreckage with the
serial number in five eight eight six we
have more great tales of survival and
many other topics too so go watch
another right now either this video over
here or check out this one over here