No matter what Cheryl Steele did, she couldn’t stop the nightmares. She’d be in the middle of a storm on Lake Huron, clinging to a canoe. And three of her friends were with her.

“One time I stayed up 26 hours because I was so afraid to go to sleep … and go through those nightmares again,” she said.

In her dreams, Cheryl would be calling to her friends, thrashing. Sometimes she’d hit the wall next to her bed, and one time she even fell out. She’d wake up sweaty and shaky, her heart pounding.

“I would prop up on the pillow, and I remember just kinda putting my head between my legs,” she said. ‘And I would … just cry and just think … when is this gonna end?’”

The reason Cheryl Steele was having these nightmares was because she had lived them.

“I woke up … just tears running down my eyes … it was dark … and I'd had it,” she remembered. “I said, ‘Why in the world, why, Lord, did you not let me die at Lake Huron? Why did you allow me to live? Because I can't live like this.’”

Credits:
Host / Producer: Dan Wanschura
Editing: Morgan Springer
Additional Editing: Ellie Katz, Austin Rowlader
Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Sounds: FreeSound

Cheryl Steele Tinsley wrote about her experience in a book called, Wave by Wave: A memoir of Survival, Faith, and How God Works.

Transcript:
[Dream sounds]

CHERYL STEELE TINSLEY:  I did not even want to take a nap. One time I stayed up 26 hours because I was so afraid to go to sleep … and go through those nightmares again. 

DAN WANSCHURA, BYLINE: No matter what Cheryl Steele did, she couldn’t stop the nightmares. She’d be in the middle of a storm on Lake Huron, clinging to a canoe. And three of her friends were with her.

STEELE TINSLEY:  In my mind, I was reaching out to grab my friends.  … Reaching out and yelling their names. And I would be so physically moving like I was still in the water in Lake Huron, that I had tore off my sheets not realizing it. 

WANSCHURA: Sometimes Cheryl would hit the wall next to her bed when she thrashed around. One time she even fell out. She’d wake up sweating and shaking, her heart pounding.

STEELE TINSLEY: I would prop up on the pillow, and I remember just kinda putting my head between my legs and I would just … just cry, and just think … you know, "when is this gonna end?" 

WANSCHURA: Cheryl was 20, living with her parents. They didn’t know what to do. So, they took her to a psychologist.

STEELE TINSLEY:  And here's what they said. They said, “don't go over there and shake her and wake her up because … she might go into shock." …"Let her go through that … we've got to go through this a little bit." 

STEELE TINSLEY: I'm gonna tell you what, it kind of broke my heart, they would stand outside my door, and they would pray, and they'd say, "Lord, help her."

WANSCHURA: This went on for weeks. The reason Cheryl was having these nightmares was because she had lived them.

STEELE TINSLEY: And I just remember in that little room, I woke up … just tears running down my eyes. … It was dark … and I'd had it. …

I said, "Why in the world, why, Lord, did you not let me die at Lake Huron? Why did you allow me to live? Because I can't live like this, and I can't live like this at all. I mean, I cannot be in fear every time I go to sleep that I am still on that lake." 

[Lake sounds]

DAN WANSCHURA, BYLINE: This is Points North. A podcast about the land, water, and inhabitants of the Great Lakes. I’m Dan Wanschura.

Cheryl Steele couldn’t get over how pretty Drummond Island was. It’s this island in the northern part of Lake Huron.

The flowers, the trees, the rocky shoreline. It was stunning.

STEELE TINSLEY: You gotta remember I'm from the Detroit area. So this is new for the girl from the Motown city there. And I just loved it. 

WANSCHURA: It was July 1980. Cheryl was out of college for the summer and working at a Christian camp in northern Michigan. She and three other counselors were on a scouting mission. They were looking for spots to bring campers on the island. Dwight Herzberger led the group. He was 26 and like an older brother to Cheryl.

STEELE TINSLEY:  When you're together, you know, 12 to 15 hours a day, and you hear him snoring in the tent next to you … you get really, really close and then … he had a wonderful sense of humor, and I don't know if you've ever met someone that you're like, "My goodness, you could be part of my family," because he just knew how to joke. I loved to joke. 

WANSCHURA: Mark Taube and Sally Coon were also with them. For three and a half days, the four of them paddled the island’s inland lakes and portaged between them, mapping out potential camp sites. Cheryl brought her 35mm camera to take landscape photos.

STEELE TINSLEY: We had a great time, got to know each other better. You could sit by the lake and do your devotions in the morning. Just absolutely gorgeous. And I just found it very peaceful. 

WANSCHURA: On the fourth day, they just had one more campsite to explore. It was on the northeast side of Drummond Island. But to get there, they had a long portage ahead of them. Dwight came up with an idea. Instead of hiking, lugging their aluminum canoes overhead, why not jump in Lake Huron, and paddle along the shoreline to get to their destination?

STEELE TINSLEY:  Dwight decided, hey, we're just gonna cut across right there. …  It's a calm day. We'll stay real close to the shore.”

WANSCHURA:  It made perfect sense. Dwight had led wilderness trips like this for years. And it was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky.

STEELE TINSLEY: We were probably no more than 30 yards off the shore, 25, 30 yards. We were just cutting across that inlet bay to the next campsite, which would have been close to where we would have went to the ranger station to come out.

WANSCHURA: Cheryl was in a canoe with Mark. He was 17, strong and athletic. Fresh out of high school. Cheryl says all the girl campers had a crush on him. Dwight and Sally were in the other canoe. It was easy going as the two canoes glided through the calm Great Lake.

[Paddling sounds]

WANSCHURA: Then, about an hour into the trip, Cheryl happened to look up and glance to her right. She saw a small, dark cloud, out over Lake Huron

STEELE TINSLEY:  I remember looking back to Mark. I was like, "Mark, you know, what do you think?" I said, "Man, look at that coming in." He said, "Oh, we're, we'll be on shore before that's over." 

WANSCHURA: They’d done their homework, too. They checked with the National Weather Service when they got to Drummond. There wasn’t supposed to be any bad weather for another two days. But the Great Lakes don’t always cooperate with weather forecasts. And that’s what happened on July 3, 1980. The first thing that hit them was the wind.[Wind sounds]

STEELE TINSLEY:  I mean, it come flying in. The wind was just flying in, just picking up. And all of a sudden, we had whitecaps coming up over those canoes.

WANSCHURA: The two canoes were right next to each other. They tried turning them back towards Drummond Island, but didn’t make much progress. A strong undertow was pulling them farther out into the lake.

STEELE TINSLEY:  All of a sudden you got three to four-foot waves, you know, and it was huge, and they were capping over. So when it capped over, it splashed into the canoe. These are just alum- what, 68-pound aluminum canoes, 10 foot. 

WANSCHURA: Cheryl and Sally started bailing water. But then the rain came.

STEELE TINSLEY:  I don't know if you've ever been in a storm where this rain does not cooperate. It comes to the side. So it's beating down on you. And I mean, you've got thunder now. There's lightning in the distance.

WANSCHURA: The canoes were no match for one of the biggest lakes in the world.

STEELE TINSLEY:  I mean, it was unreal. I mean, I felt like I was in the ocean. … And so now these canoes are sinking, and they're sinking fast. 

WANSCHURA: As the canoes went down, Dwight said a prayer and Cheryl cinched up her orange life jacket.

STEELE TINSLEY:  We went into that water, and all you heard was, It was so cold that it would take your breath away.

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WANSCHURA: It was about 2 in the afternoon. Cheryl, Dwight, Sally, and Mark were now all in the water. But they didn’t panic. They all had lifejackets on and had done some water safety training. They settled on a plan: When the two aluminum canoes capsized, they didn’t sink all the way to the bottom of the lake. Instead, they floated upright about six inches below the surface of the water. So, the goal for Cheryl and her friends was to get the canoes above water again.To do this, they’d push the submerged canoes against each other – in the shape of a T. Then force one of the canoes up on top of the other, and as they did that, they’d roll it over – emptying most of the water out in the process. Cheryl says right when they had one canoe on top of the other, and the water was emptying out, a massive wind gust came and catapulted the boat into the air.

STEELE TINSLEY:  That wind took that from underneath … and it took it and just lifted it up like it was a huge toothpick. 

STEELE TINSLEY:  It just tumbled in the air, and then it crashed into a wave. …. And like, you know, when you see that, you're thinking … "No, this is not a movie. This is real life. You just saw this." 

WANSCHURA: With that canoe now gone, the four friends all grabbed on to the remaining canoe and tried dog paddling back towards Drummond Island. Maybe 45 minutes in, they realized it was pointless. The island was getting smaller and smaller on the horizon. Not closer.

STEELE TINSLEY:  The undertow and the current, we would paddle six feet, and I swear it would take us back seven. At one point, Mark had thought about swimming to shore. But Dwight was like, "Mark, I know you're a strong swimmer, but you can't fight this." You know, and so he stayed back with us.

WANSCHURA: As the four friends got pulled farther out into Lake Huron, out of the protected bay, their strategy shifted. They decided to preserve their energy, stay together, and wait.

STEELE TINSLEY: Let's just pray that someone finds us.

WANSCHURA: The minutes turned into hours. Day turned to night. And eventually the storm started to mellow out. Cheryl says they sang songs. They prayed and talked about God. About wanting to make it back to camp. But mostly they talked about their families. By now they’d been in the water for about 10 hours. Because it was early July, the water temperature in this northern part of the lake was still cold. Cheryl says it was around 50 degrees. Hypothermia was setting in.

 STEELE TINSLEY: And you almost chatter so much that you think, "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna lose a tooth," okay? Double that about five times, because it is so cold that you are just chattering like you're like, "Psh, I'm gonna have..." You know, I have a good sense of humor. I thought, "I'm gonna have to see a dentist after this because I'm not gonna have any teeth." And you're so cold and your body is shaking. 

WANSCHURA: Then Cheryl noticed Sally Coon. She and Sally knew each other from college. Sally was 22, artsy and musical. She played the piano and loved to sew. Just before midnight, Cheryl felt the canoe shift. And realized Sally had let go.

STEELE TINSLEY:  You know, she had long hair, and it was floating in the water. And then …  all of a sudden she floated away, and I said, "Mark, Mark, get her." 

WANSCHURA: Mark swam out into the water after Sally, but he couldn’t find her. A thick fog had set in all around them.

 STEELE TINSLEY: And we're not reacting as fast as we normally would because we've been in such freezing water. Um, and so we yelled, "Sally, Sally, come back." We didn't hear anything.

WANSCHURA: Mark swam back to the canoe where Cheryl and Dwight were hanging on. Not long after that happened, Cheryl noticed something strange with Dwight. He was acting weird.

STEELE TINSLEY: And he turned and he said something like "Isn't the sand beautiful?" 

WANSCHURA:  And there wasn't any sand that you could see? 

STEELE TINSLEY: No, no. We were out in the middle of Lake Huron. 

WANSCHURA: In the middle of the night.

STEELE TINSLEY:  And I could tell by the way he was moving and how he kind of slurred his speech that something was wrong. And so I said, "Mark, we've got to get him in the canoe at this point." 

WANSCHURA: Dwight was so hypothermic he was hallucinating. By this time, the lake had settled down enough so Cheryl and Mark were able to lift Dwight into the middle of the submerged canoe. The canoe was still upright and about six inches underwater, but now, at least Dwight could sit on one of the seats.

 STEELE TINSLEY: He was so cold. And he sat there, and he was just sitting there and kinda mumbling, and, you know, I was like, "Dwight, you gotta stay with us." And I think I was kinda shaking his shoulder.

WANSCHURA: Cheryl isn’t sure how long this went on for. But she does remember that all at once Dwight lurched off the canoe into the water and started swimming.

STEELE TINSLEY:  And I'm like, "God, Mark, get him." And Mark, we were yelling, "Dwight, come back." 

WANSCHURA: Mark left the canoe again and swam towards the splashing, but then he came back.

STEELE TINSLEY: He said, "Cheryl, I can't find him." And then all of a sudden you heard no sound. 

WANSCHURA: The splashing stopped.

STEELE TINSLEY:  I prayed they made it …  I was like, "Lord, I know there can be somebody that can pick them up. There could be a fisherman, boat, whatever, that we don't see. And I pray that you would send them help." 

WANSCHURA:  Did you think that Sally and Dwight died? 

STEELE TINSLEY:  People ask me that. I never thought they didn't make it. 

WANSCHURA: It was now the early morning hours of July 4, 1980. Cheryl and Mark had been in the water for over 12 hours. That’s when Cheryl drifted off to sleep.

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WANSCHURA: When Cheryl fell asleep, she and Mark were leaning on opposite sides of the submerged canoe. Cheryl doesn’t know how long she slept, but she woke up to her head slamming against the side of the canoe. She reached up and felt warm blood coming from a cut above her left eyebrow. Cheryl looked to her left and saw Mark. Part of his head was now in the water.

STEELE TINSLEY:  His ear was down in the water, and I thought, "Oh, Lord." And so I went over to him, and I had to get him up in the canoe as much as I could. 

WANSCHURA: She pulled him across the canoe and started rubbing his arms and legs.

STEELE TINSLEY: Come on, Mark, you gotta help me. You know, you gotta, you gotta snap out of this. You gotta... Come on Mark, help me."

WANSCHURA: Cheryl decided to get in the canoe herself. And pull Mark’s head up into her arms. That’s when she noticed his eyes. They were completely dilated. Another sign of late stage hypothermia.

STEELE TINSLEY:  I was like, "Oh, Jesus. He's not responding." 

STEELE TINSLEY:  I could hear the gurgling in his lungs, and he stopped breathing in my arms. I had his head right into my left elbow. Now, you can't do CPR on a surface that's water. You're gonna push him down. So the only thing I could do is give him mouth-to-mouth, and I gave him mouth-to-mouth about three to four breaths. He came back, he gurgled a couple times, um, and then he stopped breathing. 

I believe wholeheartedly that we … have a soul and a spirit, because … Mark was in my arms. I cradled him up, and I remember I had him as close as I could, and I did not see anything, but I swear, I, I felt, like, a warmth come through my chest. … And I'm just gonna tell you, I remember I looked up in heaven and I said, "Lord Jesus, I know he's left this earth. Father God, accept him into your kingdom, because he's done. His work is done now." 

WANSCHURA:  When you're holding him in that canoe, Cheryl, and he takes his last breath, what are you thinking in that moment? 

STEELE TINSLEY: I'm gonna kinda choke up a little bit. You just realize that I'm alone in here now …  But you realize the brevity of life and you hold it right there and there's nothing you can do because you've done everything physically that you can do. …  And I realized my wonderful friend that was right there has just now left this earth. 

WANSCHURA: Now, Cheryl Steele had been in the water for about 15 hours. Her fingernails were completely white. The lake had been pushing her towards an island directly east of Drummond: Cockburn Island. As the sun started to rise, she realized she needed to make a decision: stay in the canoe and risk succumbing to hypothermia, or try to swim to the island to get warm.

STEELE TINSLEY:   I knew that I was starting to freeze to death. … I just knew if I didn't try, I'd be slipping into the later stages of hypothermia. … And so I left Mark in the canoe. It was very calm. There's really not any way I could secure him at all. And I got into the water and I said, "Lord, help me," and I swam. 

WANSCHURA: A burst of adrenaline shot through Cheryl’s body. She swam backstroke and freestyle through the calm lake for about a mile. Then she finally reached Cockburn Island and started walking along the rocky shore … her legs wobbly.

STEELE TINSLEY:  I was cut everywhere, 'cause it was rocky. … So I am stumbling. I'm totally not balanced. But I knew if I didn't start walking, I would die.

WANSCHURA: The sun slowly crept higher in the sky. It warmed Cheryl up as she wandered the island for around five hours – looking for help. She didn’t find any … and eventually ended up back where she started. She looked out over a glassy Lake Huron and could still see the canoe with Mark’s body. It was almost 1:00 in the afternoon, almost 24 hours since they’d capsized. Cheryl sat down on her orange lifejacket and prayed.

STEELE TINSLEY:  Lord, I need help. I don't know what else to do. …  And so I looked down, I prayed again, and a few minutes, I heard a wonderful sound, and it was, [horn sounds].

WANSCHURA: It was a mid-sized yacht. Inside was an older couple. They’d noticed Mark’s body floating in the canoe.

STEELE TINSLEY:  He shut all his engines down, and … I yelled and put my orange life jacket up and said, "Hey, call the United States Coast Guard. I have two friends. I don't know where they're at. Get the United States Coast Guard here. I need help.”

And he yells to me, "Hey, lady, I just bought this yacht a couple months ago. That shore is very rocky. Can you swim out to me?" 

I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" I'm thinking in my mind, "So what am I gonna tell him? Am I gonna say, 'Hey, I've been here...'" He's gonna think I'm crazy or drunk or something, right? But I don't really care what he thinks. I wanna see if Dwight and Sally have made it. So every minute I sit, standing here on this shore could be a minute they pick them up. And so I thought, "You know what, Lord? You gave me strength to get here. I'll put this orange life jacket on, and they'll catch me.

WANSCHURA: The swim wasn’t as far this time. Cheryl says maybe 100-200 yards. When she reached the boat, the couple pulled her onboard. She was dehydrated and exhausted. But managed to tell them everything.

STEELE TINSLEY: His eyes got big, and the woman sat me down, put me in a blanket, gave me something to drink.

WANSCHURA: The man slowly circled the yacht around and that’s when off in the distance, Cheryl saw two lifeless bodies in orange lifejackets floating in the water. They were the bodies of Dwight and Sally.

STEELE TINSLEY: That's the first time I cried, when I knew I was the only survivor.

 It was so surreal. My heart broke. … My friends are gone. And they entered heaven with Mark, and I'm gonna miss them terribly. 

WANSCHURA: After a few days spent in the hospital, Cheryl went back to her parents house to recover. Her body was bruised and broken down. She had liver damage from leaning over the side of the canoe, getting hammered by waves. She could barely walk. In the days that followed, Cheryl met with each of the parents of her three friends to tell them what happened.

STEELE TINSLEY:  And I asked them, I said, "Do you want to hear the whole story?" And they said, "Yes, don't hold back," and so I told them. … And I hated that, and I told them the story, and we cried, and we cried. …  The hardest thing I ever did was talk to three parents that wanted to know the last minutes of their child's life on this earth. 

 And looking at their grief, I mean, it just tore my heart up. And I remember thinking, "Why, God? These people didn't deserve this."

WANSCHURA: Cheryl felt guilty she survived. Guilty she didn’t save her friends. She was mad at God.

STEELE TINSLEY:  Because we were in the prime of our lives, and then we were also serving at a Christian camp and just full of life.

WANSCHURA: For the first week of recovery, Cheryl would go to sleep and sleep deeply. Then the nightmares started. They got worse and worse. Until she reached a breaking point.

STEELE TINSLEY:  If this is what life looks like for me for the rest of my life … God, I'm sorry, but I think you messed up." … And I remember just looking up, and I was like, "This is it. I can't do it anymore. I cannot do this. If every time I have to go to sleep, and my eyes shut, and I am back in that trauma at Lake Huron, why didn't you just kill me? Why am I still here?" 

WANSCHURA: Cheryl says a minute or two passed. She didn’t see anything, but all at once, she felt this presence come over her.

STEELE TINSLEY:  It was peace. …  I felt like God was right in that room, that He had just come, and it was almost like a liquid love that just surrounded me, and I felt that peace. … That night God heard my prayers, and he knew I was so desperate. I needed to know that even though I went through all that and it broke me, that I could trust him to guide my life and repair.

WANSCHURA: From that moment on, those nightmares went away. It’s been nearly 50 years since the storm, and they haven’t come back. Cheryl Steele still doesn’t understand why everything happened, but she’s now at a place where she’s ok with that.