Recently, on my trip with our youngest camping in the wild (see blog post here) an unfinished painting of mine was stolen. Here’s the story:

Our daughter was on a 12.5 hour loop hike summiting 3+ peaks, and I stayed back to paint while she was gone. The previous week I had been at a painting workshop (see blog post here) and had purchased some large, especially sanded paper to work on in pastel. I had only used one of the ten sheets in the workshop (see here), so I was looking forward to painting something else on those, in this new, gorgeous spot.

I chose to work on a detailed composition of birches, iconic to the area. It was an unusually ambitious, time consuming subject to do the way I was imagining. I enjoyed working on it; it was looking good– you could tell what it was– but it was also far from complete to my way of thinking. I figured I’d finish it another day.

Our reservation was for two different lean-to’s since we were unable to book one for the entire week of our stay. There are seven lean-to’s on South Branch Pond, and we were moving from #1 to #7. We dismantled our campsite and shoved our stuff into the car to take to the new site, but my daughter wanted to avoid getting pastel dust in her car, so I volunteered to walk the painting over, while she finished packing the car.

So I walked the painting over, clipped on the outside of two large backing boards, with the other eight large sanded sheets inside, clipped between. I leaned it up against a tree in the new campsite and walked back to the old campsite to help our daughter bring the rest of our stuff. On the way, I walked past the folks that had been in #6 getting ready to leave.

When I got back to our former site, I found our daughter had needed to get her car jumped in order to drive, so we were delayed a bit because of that. (Her automatic trunk opener had run the battery down; we had to get another jump the morning we wanted to leave as well.)

By the time we had gotten the car to lean-to #7 and unloaded all our stuff, I noticed that my painting, as well as the backing boards and other paper, had vanished. It was simply gone.

My first thought was that the ranger found it on a sweep to insure the sites were clean and ready for the next person, so I ran over there, but no, she was appalled at its disappearance.

My next best thought was that those people, when leaving #6 thought I was littering, and took it to be good and respectful of the “leave no trace” policy.

I never harbored any ill motives to anyone, but still I was irked. I had worked for a rare full day on that painting, and besides the stack of 9 archival surfaces and backingboards were an expensive loss. Furthermore, I had planned on spending my time on the camping trip painting, and now that would not be happening.

I had trouble accepting this, especially out in the wild, in a place that had a trusting, safe-with-each-other ethos. The next day, when our daughter was paying for some firewood, she mentioned it to the new ranger on duty, who later that day sent over a law enforcement officer to talk to us.

His name was Russell Porter, and he was lovely– uber respectful, and thorough. He asked for the story and wrote it all down. He got my name and address. He asked me all sorts of questions like, “Are you such a famous international artist that someone would recognize either you or your work and want to steal it?”  My daughter joked that hundreds of years from now there would be this unsigned painting that they’ll argue about whether or not it was a genuine “Polly Castor.”  Russell kept saying I seemed way too humble about the value of my work; obviously it was good enough for someone to want to steal it, even half finished.

He was so horrified and indignant that something like this could happen in his park, I did feel better after talking with him. The next day he worked was to be our last day, but he promised to come by and tell us any developments he had learned. He was on the job and taking this as seriously as any detective in a movie. Meanwhile, he planned to call the folks that were leaving #6 to see what they had to say.

Our week proceeded pleasantly enough; it is a totally beautiful spot and I did a lot of reading instead of painting, but that was fine.

Now that I wasn’t feeling quite so violated, I could pray better about it. I reasoned that God’s children are honest and principled by design, and what is mine can never be taken by someone else. And I cannot lose out because I was trusting. Also, everyone else already came complete with everything they needed as well, so there was no reason for them to take anything from anyone else. I was able to find my spiritual peace and let the problem go.

The last day, we took the canoe out for a long paddle, complete with a portage to the next lake south. We had a terrific time. We got back to the campsite happy and tired, and were immediately confronted by a surprise!

There was my painting together with the backing boards, clips, and the rest of the large paper! I was stunned. I ran off again to the ranger station to find out what had happened. When Russell had called the #6 folks, they remembered me carrying the painting there, but they didn’t have it.

But then when the ranger (Tom) checked on site #5 when they moved out, he found my painting left behind in their lean-to. Apparently, they had had a change of heart, possibly due to my prayer? It is hard to know why someone would steal a painting and then leave it behind.

I said to the rangers that it was good we were still there, and hadn’t already left when they had found it, to which Russell said they would have mailed it to me, which I thought was so very kind.

I don’t know when (or if) I’ll finish that painting, but I’m super glad to have my expensive paper back, and to be reassured again with proof of the real spiritual truths of all that I prayed.

I’m also grateful for the great park ranger staff who genuinely cared about the right outcome, and wholeheartedly wanted to solve (and did!) this unusual mystery.