Joe was an ordinary man.  One could say he was an average joe.  But for one week out of the year he was anything but ordinary.  The winter supply run.  This happened the first week of november, right before the snow comes.  He would take his biplane out of his small town in Alaska, to get supplies for its 45 residents.  He’d been doing this for 30 years, and it was the one thing he didn’t absolutely love doing in his little Alaskan town.  Every year he would do this, because he was the only one capable of going a month without seeing his nice warm bed by the fireplace.  The town respected him greatly for this, and they would throw a party when he got back.  Every single person would come unless they were sick, or out of town.

This year was different. Joe’s biplane had been acting up, and since he was the town mechanic, he fixed it up for himself.  He didn’t think much of it, it was only a clogged fuel injector.  All he needed to do was take it out and clean it up.  This was a normal thing to happen in that little town, the fuel tanks were never really cleaned, so there was always going to be something in the fuel here and there.  The supply run was coming up in a few weeks, so Joe was preparing.  He packed ten coolers with bags for supplies, he checked his toolbag, he loaded the snow skis into the plane because early snow was predicted.  He packed clothes, his sleeping bag, a water bottle to refill between stops along the way, and enough beef jerky to last a year.

When November rolled around, the whole town gathered at the makeshift airport to send Joe off on his way.  All the children lined up to give Joe hugs, “Thank you Joe!” they would all say.  Then he set off, following the same route as last year.  Usually, it would take him around five hours to get to the first stop where he would refuel, get a drink, and head another five to the next stop.  Joe made it to the first stop with no problems.  There he got a coffee, a burger, talked for a few minutes, and then left.  Since flying for ten hours was pretty exhausting, usually when he got the the second stop, he would sleep for the night.  He would have done the same this time, if he had the chance.

About two hours into the flight, Joe noticed that the fuel gage had started to flatline.  Then it did the worst thing possible, drop extremely fast.  Now the engine started to sputter and fail.  Joe was shocked, how could this have happened?  He realized he would have to make an emergency landing in a nearby clearing.  He spotted one to the left.  It was just barely long enough.  With surprising skill, Joe safely landed in the clearing.  Now it was time to find out what caused the problem.  Joe slowly clambered out of the cockpit. He groaned as his feet hit the hard solid ground, as he unlatched the hood he expected the worst.   Under the hood he couldn’t find anything.  “What could have possibly happened?” Then he thought for a minute.  Maybe the engine wasn’t the problem.  He walked over to the back of the plane to inspect the fuel tank.  “Oh, wow,” he said.  The fuel line leading to the engine had completely disconnected!  There was no fuel left in the tank whatsoever.  And since there was going to be so much stuff in the plane, he didn’t pack any extra fuel in case of emergencies.  Just out of curiosity, he followed the line all the way to the fuel injector.  The fuel injector had been clogged again, causing pressure buildup between the fuel tank and the engine which in turn caused the fuel line to come disconnected from the tank.

Joe knew what he was doing when it came to things like this.  Since he was in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, there was no way to contact anybody.  So he made three large lines on the ground, the international distress signal.  Now he needed three things, food, water, and shelter.  He had his pane for shelter, and he had beef jerky for food.  He didn’t just want to eat beef jerky, so he decided the next day he would look for some berries or anything else that seemed good.  “Crap,” Joe said, now he had only a half of a water bottle, so he needed a source of water.  It was starting to get dark, so Joe took a sip of water, ate some beef jerky, set up his sleeping bag inside the plane, and went to sleep.

The next morning Joe had trouble getting up, he didn’t sleep well knowing that the only chance he had to survive was if somebody flew over him and saw his signal.  When he finally got up, Joe had a hearty breakfast of beef jerky and another sip of water.  Then it was time to go look for a source of water.  For a couple hours, Joe wandered until he came upon a wild raspberry bush.  After looking around by the bush, Joe realized there was an entire grove of raspberry bushes.  He gathered up as many berries as he could carry, and went back to the plane.  Joe took out one of the coolers and decided to use it as his designated raspberry fridge.  Then Joe went back out into the woods to look for a water source.  

Joe walked for hours.  After finding nothing, Joe knew he needed to move his camp.  But where? He drank the remaining water in his water bottle before putting the some beef jerky and his sleeping bag in the cooler so it was easier to carry.  Then he grabbed a tarp and used some bungie cords to tie it down on the cooler.  He wrote a note stating that he couldn’t find water, so he headed to the mountains he could see in the West hoping he would find a mountain stream.  Joe walked until it started to get dark again. When he was done building the shelter, he laid down to go to sleep, but he couldn’t sleep.  Joe was starting to feel the symptoms of dehydration.  He was starting to get a dry mouth and a headache.  After eating some berries, he started to feel a little better, but he knew what might happen.

Joe woke up in a fit, he was having a nightmare.  He knew if he didn’t find water soon, he might die.  Just in case anybody had seen his signal, and read his note, Joe had put bright orange ribbons on trees along his way. He looked back at the few ribbons he could see, half hoping there would be somebody walking towards him.  After not seeing anybody, Joe started off heading due West using his compass as a guide.  At what seemed like noon, Joe stopped for some food.  By now the fear had set in, Joe’s mouth was very dry, and he had a bad headache.  He tried eating some berries which had worked last night, but this time did nothing.  Joe kept walking.  Fatigue had started to come in just as Joe reached the top of a hill.  “Yes!” Joe hollered, at the bottom, he saw the sight of his dreams, a stream running down the base of a mountain.  Joe stopped pulling the cooler and flat out ran.  He didn’t care that his legs were like jelly or that he felt like he was going to pass out.  He just ran.  When he reached the stream, he started to force the water into his mouth.  Then he noticed it tasted funny.  He spat the water out and looked closer.  The water had a green tint, and there was lots of little flakes in it.  Joe just about went insane.  He knew there would be no water around for miles, and he didn’t have the strength to build a fire to boil the water so it was safe to drink.   He felt defeated.  Joe went back up to the cooler, set it next to a tree, and sat down.  At that time another person had been flying over and seen Joe's signal.  The man read the note and followed Joe's trail, but by the time he reached the tree on top of the hill, it was too late.