Former Squamish resident Erik Bjarnason has lived a life movies are made of.
In 2005, the firefighter and North Shore Search and Rescue member escaped death while on an expedition with eight others to the Yukon Territory’s Mount Logan.
The trip took an unexpected and tragic turn when the members became trapped in a brutal storm. When much of their survival gear blew away, things got worse.
The team survived, but Bjarnason lost his fingers and one thumb to frostbite in the process. Unbelievably, that is just the start of his story.
Though there’s no movie yet, 51-year-old Bjarnason has written a book about his experiences: Surviving Logan. The Squamish Chief caught up with Bjarnason for a chat about the book, losing his fingers and life’s new perspective.
Q: How was it to write a book about your harrowing experience?
A: It has been very cathartic for me. It took about a decade to actually get off my butt and have it done. Luckily [co-author] Cathi Shaw helped me. The most interesting part about it was all these things for the last decade that I thought happened, some of them didn’t and some things happened that I had no idea about until I wrote the book. All our families were told that our deaths were imminent. I didn’t know that.
Q: Being a firefighter and a rescuer, what surprised you being caught in the storm on Mount Logan?
A: I have done trips all over the world and one of the most fun trips I ever did was a dog sled trip up to the magnetic North Pole.
I was in the Arctic for a month in a tent and I never felt cold like I felt on Mount Logan. Everywhere else is a dry cold, where you can kind of deal with it. At Logan it is down to the bone, it is wet. It is unbelievable. The wind chill was probably closer to -90 degrees when the storm hit us at altitude.
Whoever said freezing to death is painless was lying. It is so painful.
Q: You suffered from hypothermia during your ordeal. What was that like?
A: It was one of the scariest points in my life. There was absolutely nothing you could do and we didn’t think anybody was on the way to help, so we were basically waiting to die. We built a snow grave, a trench, and we lay in there a couple days just trying to get heat off of each other.
I was extremely hypothermic and I thought I was totally fine. It was so bizarre.
We eventually got to the point where we were kind of grunting to each other, thinking that we were having a conversation. Looking back, there was absolutely no communication whatsoever – it was just baby talk.
But if you have to die it isn’t a totally bad way because your mind just starts to shut down.
Q: You said your family thought you were going to die, but did you think that at any point?
A: For three days we thought we were going to die. We’d written notes to our family. We had radio contact with two of our team who were below us who were in a safe camp, the camp we were trying to reach.
We had radioed our goodbyes to them, told them what we wanted them to say to our families, thanked them for the trip, wished them well. That was a bit hard. I think it was even harder on them. I have talked to them since and they said it was just horrendous because they had to listen to us on the radio just kind of fade away.
Q: What ended up happening to your hands?
A: Thank God for hard drugs and good nurses. I lost the tip off of every finger and half a thumb.
They gave me a choice of what hand to save and I am right handed so they put a stint underneath my armpit. They put my whole arm to sleep for about a month and then sewed it into my body and reconstructed fingers out of it, eventually. My right hand is up to about your first knuckle and my left hand is just below the first knuckle.
Q: You eventually ended up going back to work as a firefighter. How did you manage that?
A: Being a fireman was my life’s goal. It is what I wanted from a little kid. I loved the job so I really wanted to do it, but I thought there was no hope.
As I started to get used to my hands and be able to do more and more, I thought maybe I will give it a try. I started to train and rehab my body and work toward it.
Eventually they had to let me take a test that new firefighters take.
When I passed that they were still concerned. They didn’t want to throw me into a burning building and have me hurt myself or worse, not be able to help my fellow firefighters.
They hired a guy from WorkSafeBC who gave me a four-day test. He tested every single piece of equipment off the fire truck and I had to prove I could use it efficiently and safely. Once I proved I could do every aspect of the job, they had to let me go back to work, which was one of the best days of my life.
Q: How has this whole experience changed your life?
A: I think I appreciate things more, a good meal, a nice day. I think today’s problems are all First World problems.
Taxes are high – We are safe and we live in a beautiful country where we are not going to get shot so who cares?
House prices are high – but we have a home.
All of these problems are not as important as they were to me before this trip.
It taught me it doesn’t matter how well trained you are, you can die any minute, so enjoy life as much as you can because we are all going to die eventually.
Q: From what I understand, you have lived life to the fullest since you were rescued.
A: I climbed Mount Elbrus in Russia, which is one of the seven summits, and I did that 13 months after I survived Mount Logan, just a few months after I got out of the hospital.
Then I went and climbed Mount Everest, but I only made it up to 28,000 feet because I got high altitude cerebral edema.
I have been doing trips, just loving life. I am still going to die eventually so I might as well do something fun up until then.
Surviving Logan is available on Amazon.ca and the Rocky Mountain Books website www.rmbooks.com. An official launch of the book is taking place in North Vancouver on Saturday, Nov. 26 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Go to the Surviving Logan Launch Party Facebook page for more information.
Bjarnason has asked that anyone in Squamish who reads and likes the book to donate to SAR.
