Twice during my lifetime, I’ve learned the hard way how unpredictable and dangerous the weather can be near Manitoulin Island, the world’s largest freshwater island, just west of Georgian Bay in Lake Huron.
The first time was in 1969, when my dad and I took a fishing trip to the island. As we flew home on his Cessna 172, near-hurricane-type winds appeared out of nowhere, thrashing our little plane. Every nearby airport had shut down. My dad made a heroic emergency landing in a farmer’s field on the Bruce Peninsula, but not before telling me to put my head down between my legs “in crash position.”
Then, maybe two decades ago, I was canoeing on calm waters in the North Channel when again, suddenly, the winds whipped up. I couldn’t get back to shore and instead was being blown out to open waters. That can be incredibly scary. They had to send a motorboat to rescue me.
Thankfully, these incidents ended well. But such was not the case for two families who decided to take their boat through the North Channel 59 years ago today.
“This is an incredible story of heartache, tragedy, struggle, sorrow, guilt, and redemption,” says Mike Strobel, a former Toronto Sun columnist who has a camp on Manitoulin Island. He discovered the story’s details and wrote about them a decade ago. Strobel shared the story last week during the annual History Day in Kagawong event, organized by the Old Mill Heritage Centre, the village’s local museum, which is run by curator Rick Nelson.
On August 15, 1965 — 59 years ago today — two families who co-owned a mahogany Chris-Craft Cruiser Deluxe called the Rhu set out on a 60-kilometre day trip from Little Current west to Gore Bay through the North Channel of Manitoulin Island. Jim and Shirley Huffman brought their two daughters, Catherine and Karen, four and two years old. The other couple was Wyn and Bonnie Rhydwen. (The Rhu took its name from the couples’ last names: “R” from Rhydwen, “Hu” from Huffman).
New plaque at the Austin H. Hunt Marina. (Steve Paikin)
The Huffmans were both teachers. Rhydwen was a decorated war veteran and the editor of the Sudbury Star newspaper. The Rhydwens were from Toronto but had moved to Sudbury after their teenaged son was killed in a car accident. The couple needed a fresh start, away from Ontario’s capital city, and Sudbury provided that.
The day trip was going beautifully — 20 degrees Celsius with a light breeze — when the Rhu passed the island’s northernmost spot, Maple Point, and ran aground on a huge shoal of rocks. A marker designed to warn away boats had become dislodged during a previous storm. The six passengers were totally stuck.
Despite the calm conditions, the group decided against having one of them swim more than a mile to shore to seek help; instead they waited, hoping another boat would come by to help.
None did.
Suddenly, one of the North Channel’s typical violent storms appeared out of nowhere, thrashing the Rhu. The six held on for dear life all day Sunday. But the boat took a pounding, forcing everyone to abandon ship and attempt to swim for shore.
“We knew we were doomed as soon as we entered the water,” Jim Huffman told Strobel more than a decade ago.
There were no flares on the Rhu. The life jackets were not up to the task. Despite all six being tied to each other by rope in hopes of staying together, both daughters drowned within two hours. Then Wyn had a heart attack and died. And then Shirley perished.
As agonizing as it was, Jim and Bonnie knew their only hope of survival was to cut the bodies loose, which they did. At 9 a.m. the next morning, they were swept ashore on a nearby island. Only then did another boater see them and call for help. The Sudbury Star sent a plane to pick them up.
Eventually, the four bodies washed ashore. Shirley Huffman and her daughters were buried in Leamington and Wyn in Toronto. Bonnie disappeared after the tragedy and hasn’t been heard from since.
Nearly five decades later, Strobel interviewed Jim Huffman, near death and suffering from Parkinson’s, in a long-term-care home in Toronto. Despite the passage of time and having remarried and had more children, Huffman was still racked by guilt. He had frequently contemplated suicide, he said.
“It was my job to protect them, and I didn’t do that,” he told Strobel. “There are no answers.” Huffman devoted the remainder of his life to volunteering for an organization dealing with bereaved families, trying to help others find the comfort that had rarely come to him.
St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in Kagawong. (Steve Paikin)
If you spend any time near Maple Point on Manitoulin Island, you cannot forget the tragic events of August 15, 1965. Two years later, Billings Township mayor Austin Hunt saw the movie Moby Dick, starring Gregory Peck. In it was a church pulpit constructed from the bow of a boat. That prompted Hunt to gather his two sons, Wayne and Michael, plus a cousin, Harry Tracy, in hopes of reclaiming the bow of the Rhu. The Hunts took their boat, and Tracy took his boat — and off to work they went.
“As we neared the reef, they had me dive in, and then my brother, so that we could pull both boats around all the rocks,” Wayne Hunt explains. “We worked fast. The bow was loaded on [Harry’s] boat with a slip knot so that if heavy waves hit and his boat went down, we could quickly pull the cord and let his boat sink without pulling our boat down. An adventure, to be sure.”
The Rhu's bow at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church. (Steve Paikin)
The mission was successful, and the bow of the Rhu is now the pulpit at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in Kagawong, a 15-minute drive from Maple Point.
A small plaque on the bow/pulpit simply states:
AUGUST 1965
IN MEMORY OF
SHIRLEY HUFFMAN
CATHERINE HUFFMAN
KAREN HUFFMAN
WYN RHYDWEN
(Steve Paikin)
Two weeks ago, as part of the church’s annual “blessing of the boats” ceremony, the village unveiled a new plaque at the Austin H. Hunt Marina dedicated to the man who remained mayor until 2018 and died three years ago at age 95. The plaque reads:
DEDICATED TO THOSE
WHO LOST THEIR
LIVES ON THE
GREAT LAKES
Manitoulin Island is a wonderful place to visit. But the unpredictability of the weather, to this day, ought to be a cautionary tale for everyone who wants to enjoy its offerings. Never was that more apparent than 59 years ago today.
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