Justin Housman takes a look at the kayaker who tried to bounce on his family by faking his own death.
And you know what? He kinda gets it.
If you’re reading this, you likely listen to the Rock Fight podcast and have heard me and Colin discussing the sad, weird case of the kayaker who recently faked his own death before fleeing to Eastern Europe.
His name is Ryan Bogwart. Dude’s a real piece of work.
To recap, he came up with an elaborate plan to pretend to drown in a Wisconsin lake, but not before he wired himself a bunch of money into Eastern European bank accounts. He told his wife he was going fishing, paddled out to the middle of a lake, dumped his kayak over, paddled back to shore in a small inflatable boat, then high-tailed it out of there on an e-bike. His vehicle remained behind. His upturned kayak drifting aimlessly.
Bogwart clearly drowned in a freak accident in the lake. Except, of course, he didn’t. After serious lake searching revealed not a shred of evidence there was a body in or near the lake, law enforcement became curious. They typed Bogart’s name into the ole’ international police machine that apparently tracks everyone’s name everywhere. Because they found out Bogwart had his passport checked in Canada just after drowning. Oops.
At that point, the jig was largely up.
Sadly, the dude has a family. Two kids. A wife. Lord knows what was going on in the man’s life to motivate something as crazily ambitious and, frankly, ballsy, as a plan to hit eject on everything he’d ever known. Only a total dick would leave a family thinking they’d died like that to start over with a whole new life in Uzbekistan.
But, and I feel weird even mentioning this, lots of dads my age, who once devoted lives to surfing or skiing or climbing, have had a similar reaction to this story amongst friends. “I kinda get it,” they say, nervously laughing. The jokes flow fast and easy across text threads. “I just figured out a way to surf more,” one friend wrote when they sent me a link to Bogwart’s story. And that was pretty standard.
Does this mean there’s about to be an epidemic of dad bailing? I doubt it. But suddenly, as a dad in my 40s, I get the mid-life crisis stereotypes. I’m not out prowling Porsche dealerships or anything, but I am spending lots of time looking at phots of me on surf trips in my 20s, wondering where the years and the carefree fun have gone.
Obviously, there are about 10,000 light years between remembering the good old days and abandoning your family to be a selfish prick. But it’s also gotta mean something that so many adventure dads feel the need to talk about Bogwart’s story and then add a transitional “but…” to their telling.
The solution is, I think, obvious. Way more surf trips. That’s my plan anyway.
Justin Housman is a journalist, podcaster, and Cicerone. You can find more of his work by following him on LinkedIn.