MONDAY JUNE 15, 2015
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Thanks from the heart In September of 2012 Everett Olafson of Wasa was buried when a sand dune at Koocanusa collapsed. Now three years later, he has had time to reflect on that day and what it meant. E VERET T OL AFSON For the Bulletin
September 1, 2012, looked like any normal day: a clear sky, warm water, kids playing in the sand. I didn’t expect anything to happen. But it did. While digging in a sand dune at Koocanusa Lake, something above me collapsed. I was buried under a bank of sand. I remember screaming for help, then thinking, “What the heck are you PHOTOS COURTESY WDE ENTERTAINMENT AND TRAVEL CHANNEL doing, Everett? Sand is sound proof.” But I Kimberley’s Kirkby family — Christine Pitkanen, Bruce Kirkby, Bodi and Taj — are off on a Big Crazy Family Adventure. screamed again anyway. The next thing I remember, I’m running through a forest, away from the shadow of a redeyed, black frog. I fall into a tree, into a blob of beige 13,000 miles and more people to share Jell-O. I push and slap my way through, and fall into them with. The family no airplane; the has explored the mounspace, where I float into nothing. I swim through Kirkby family’s tains of Patagonia and a golden gate and into a the steppes of Georgia. big adventure page of Eye Spy, where Their latest journey suddenly everything is saw them leave KimberC AROLYN GR ANT clouds. I fly through and ley and travel to a reBulletin Editor door and walk on the mote monastery in the ground. Two guys are Himalaya — all without eating their lunch on a Anyone who knows getting on an airplane. skyscraper beam. I ask the Kirkby family of Kim- The trekked through the them, “what are you berley — Bruce, Chris- Himalaya (with a short building?” tine and sons Bodi and stop at Mt. Everest’s base “We’re building a Taj — knows that the camp), sailed the Ganbuilding,” they say. typical family vacation is ges River, crossed the “What kind?” not for them. Bruce, a North Pacific Ocean on a “You’ll have to wait wilderness guide, writer container ship and medand see,” they respond. and award-winning itated with monks in a “You’ll have to wait and photographer, has been Tibetan monastery. Just see.” travelling the world’s a family of four. And a TV I didn’t wake up until wildest places for many crew of about 20. years and the arrival of Christine hikes with sons Taj and Bodi, who skip along a ridge pass while September 8, a week later. At one moment, I See FAMILY Page 4 trekking the Zanskar Valley in Ladakh, India (Leg 9) children only meant
Not your typical family vacation
Everett Olafson was dreaming on morphine, and in the next blink, I was in a hospital room, my Dad by my side, my body wired to machines, tubes stuffed up my nose, needles in my veins, and everything a little hazy. I had been in a medically-induced coma, so the sand that flooded into my lungs could be suctioned out. It would be another week before I was released from the Edmonton Children’s Hospital. My doctor said I was one in a million. No one had ever recovered so quickly from being buried alive. Two and a half years later, while sitting my English class, we were asked to complete an assignment about people who made a difference in our lives. Just thinking about this — knowing that if so many people hadn’t helped me — I wouldn’t be doing this assignment, brought me to tears. For the first time in almost three years, I cried. After all these years, I never felt I had a real chance to thank the people who helped me. Sorry if I forget anyone. So here I go... See THANKS, Page 3