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- Mar 12, 2010
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Well I wasn't anticipating it turning out this way, but I had a very special holiday hike this Christmas. I am from Door County, WI, which is a very small place with some big natural resources.
One of my favorite places to visit in Door County is Peninsula State Park. It is a 3776 acre park with 8 miles of Green Bay Shoreline. It has many bluffs which are part of the Niagra Escarpment, and the cliffs and views from them are unrivaled. An absolutely beautiful place to enjoy nature in all it's forms.
The reason this place is so special to me is because of my family ties to the park, specifically with my dad. My dad's name was Johnny Lara Gonzales, and he died in 2001 at the age of 41. I was 18 years old when it happened, and remember it all as if it were yesterday.
He was an avid ice fisherman and outdoorsman. He loved Peninsula State Park, and spent a lot of time there. In 2001, he was ice fishing off the western shore of the park. On his way back home, he went between what is called Welcker's Point, near the Northern tip of the park, and Horseshoe Island on his ATV across the frozen bay. Between the point and the island was a stronger current due to the water being forced through the two bodies of land. The stronger current caused the ice he was traveling on to be thinner, and it was not strong enough to support him and the ATV, and he fell through.
Nobody else was with him at this time, and we can only speculate on how everything unfolded, but I've spent some time trying to relive his final moments. This is what I know...
His body was found 15 feet under water less than 50 feet from shore. The ice was broken in a pattern leading to shore, showing that he was attempting to climb out of the lake onto the ice in a direction heading towards land. In addition to that, his gloves were found on the ice almost directly above where his body was found... Most ice fisherman are taught this trick when they begin venturing across the ice. A good ice fisherman knows that if you fall through the ice and you think you aren't going to make it out of the frozen water, take off your gloves and place them on the ice so that the emergency personnel have an easier time of locating your body. That's some brutal stuff right there.
That's how he died. Doing something he loved, in a piece of this earth that he loved. He never got old, and that's part of his legend...
After he passed away, we decided to bury him in the cemetery located within the park itself. It just seemed right. He spent so much of his life there, he died there, and he is buried there.
Since 2001, I've gone to visit the park many times, and thought of him every time. He loved it there, and I feel him every time I go there. One time, my cousin was snowshoeing in the park and came across a tree that had the initials JG carved in it. He didn't have a single doubt in his mind that it was my dad. That summer I went up to find the tree, and this is what I found...
It was an amazing sight to behold. We had gone through his stuff, pieced through and distributed his belongings, gone through every photo, and had somehow or another gone through every piece of his life that he left behind. Finding a piece of this world where he left his mark more than 6 years after he passed away was unexpected, and as you can imagine, very emotional.
This Christmas, I made another trek into the park. It was a snowy, wintery day, and it was in my opinion a perfect day to be out in the woods. I started out on my hike heading towards the cemetary to go say hello to the old man...
MORE TO COME
One of my favorite places to visit in Door County is Peninsula State Park. It is a 3776 acre park with 8 miles of Green Bay Shoreline. It has many bluffs which are part of the Niagra Escarpment, and the cliffs and views from them are unrivaled. An absolutely beautiful place to enjoy nature in all it's forms.
The reason this place is so special to me is because of my family ties to the park, specifically with my dad. My dad's name was Johnny Lara Gonzales, and he died in 2001 at the age of 41. I was 18 years old when it happened, and remember it all as if it were yesterday.
He was an avid ice fisherman and outdoorsman. He loved Peninsula State Park, and spent a lot of time there. In 2001, he was ice fishing off the western shore of the park. On his way back home, he went between what is called Welcker's Point, near the Northern tip of the park, and Horseshoe Island on his ATV across the frozen bay. Between the point and the island was a stronger current due to the water being forced through the two bodies of land. The stronger current caused the ice he was traveling on to be thinner, and it was not strong enough to support him and the ATV, and he fell through.
Nobody else was with him at this time, and we can only speculate on how everything unfolded, but I've spent some time trying to relive his final moments. This is what I know...
His body was found 15 feet under water less than 50 feet from shore. The ice was broken in a pattern leading to shore, showing that he was attempting to climb out of the lake onto the ice in a direction heading towards land. In addition to that, his gloves were found on the ice almost directly above where his body was found... Most ice fisherman are taught this trick when they begin venturing across the ice. A good ice fisherman knows that if you fall through the ice and you think you aren't going to make it out of the frozen water, take off your gloves and place them on the ice so that the emergency personnel have an easier time of locating your body. That's some brutal stuff right there.
That's how he died. Doing something he loved, in a piece of this earth that he loved. He never got old, and that's part of his legend...
After he passed away, we decided to bury him in the cemetery located within the park itself. It just seemed right. He spent so much of his life there, he died there, and he is buried there.
Since 2001, I've gone to visit the park many times, and thought of him every time. He loved it there, and I feel him every time I go there. One time, my cousin was snowshoeing in the park and came across a tree that had the initials JG carved in it. He didn't have a single doubt in his mind that it was my dad. That summer I went up to find the tree, and this is what I found...
It was an amazing sight to behold. We had gone through his stuff, pieced through and distributed his belongings, gone through every photo, and had somehow or another gone through every piece of his life that he left behind. Finding a piece of this world where he left his mark more than 6 years after he passed away was unexpected, and as you can imagine, very emotional.
This Christmas, I made another trek into the park. It was a snowy, wintery day, and it was in my opinion a perfect day to be out in the woods. I started out on my hike heading towards the cemetary to go say hello to the old man...
MORE TO COME
