We experienced, throughout our recreational lives of hiking, canoeing, camping enough episodes where we were directly exposed to violent thunderstorms to have a fairly intimate knowledge of what it feels like to be caught out. Caught out in the sense of having set out on a perfectly blue-sky day, the sun warming our paddling backs, in the centre of a lake when suddenly the unmistakable rumble of distant thunder sounds, repeats and repeats itself, growing clearer with each repeat, while the sky suddenly takes on the appearance of dark gloom.

You paddle with quite a bit of physical enthusiasm. We're the kind of people who appreciate the magnificence of nature, while respecting at the very same time the randomly threatening nature that can from time to time, erupt. We've experienced it at semi-wilderness remote camping sites, and at the near summits of mountains during alpine camping expeditions. And we've had some fairly hair-raising occurrences, caught out in our canoe with wind whipping up whitecaps and thunder serenading us while lightning lit up the dark heavens above.

Through it all, we've come to appreciate nature all the more. And at the same time we appreciate that though we might have presented on those occasions as prime victims to untoward natural events, we never really did experience any true danger, just the potential of it. After the adrenalin settles down, and the event has passed, comes evaluation and thanksgiving.

Occasionally news items come to the fore to dislodge old memories of one's own. In yesterday's paper a short news item about the misfortune that fell upon a New Jersey man of 53 who was out canoeing with his 20s-year-old daughter at Clear Lake, close by Elgin, southwest of Ottawa. Their experience was one of pure unadulterated misery followed by catastrophe.

Joseph Higgins of Mickleton, N.J. was out fishing on the lake with his daughter. A pop-up thunderstorm was launched by nature, which turned into quite an intense affair. They paddled to shore and found refuge under the porch of a cottage, the only habitation at that site. And while they thought they had found a dry, safe haven, they hadn't. An electrical strike hit the cottage, actually hit Mr. Higgins, and he was killed. The cottage caught on fire, the daughter who had attempted CPR on her father, emerged from under the cottage, and waved in the distance over toward the other shore of the lake, begging for help.

There, Chris Cadue, owner of Clear Lake Cottages, saw fire and smoke and someone waving for help. He launched a boat and accompanied by one of his guests reached the shore where the cottage was afire. There he attempted CPR as well, but to no avail. "I just kind of looked at her and said, 'I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do here."

In the event, that of an emergency where people were caught out in the most vulnerable of positions during a violent electrical storm, they attempted to take advantage of what was offered to them by circumstances. Anyone would have chosen the same response as this father and daughter did. Taking shelter under the cottage porch made perfectly good sense.

"You and I would do the same thing", said Mr. Cadue. "You get off the lake and seek shelter, and that's what they did."