Craig Berg had been alone in the Isle Royale wilderness for eleven days, eating dried food he was rationing and drinking whatever water he could find, when two men in a kayak heard him yelling from the shoreline. What they found was a 70-year-old Michigan man who had, by every account, willed himself out of a swamp and toward the sound of human voices for over a week.

Berg, of Royal Oak, set out on a solo backpacking trip on Isle Royale National Park, the 44-mile-long wilderness island in Lake Superior, and was due back on the mainland via the Ranger III ferry on September 5. When he did not show, his family reported him missing the next day, setting off a massive, multi-agency search across one of the most remote and roadless national parks in the country.

According to his son, Evan Berg, his father lost the trail around the fourth day of his hike and then fell into a marsh, losing both his cellphone and his wallet in the muck. Cut off from any way to call for help, he pressed on using a paper map and the position of the sun to guess his direction, carrying camping gear and some dried food but not eating every day, according to details relatives and officials gave reporters.

Searchers scoured dense forest, rocky shoreline, wetlands and inland lakes for a week. Crews from the National Park Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, Michigan State Police, the Keweenaw County Sheriff's Department and Minnesota State Patrol used search dogs, drones, boats and aircraft, at one point ferrying emergency personnel more than 30 miles across open Lake Superior to reach an incident command post, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The break came Saturday, when two off-duty National Guard soldiers kayaking near Intermediate Lake, more than a mile from any marked trail, heard Berg calling out and radioed his location to park officials.

"He got lost, and then he fell into a marsh, and he lost his cell phone and his wallet in the marsh. He's been slowly trying to make his way to find somebody," Evan Berg told reporters after speaking with his father by phone.

A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk crew from Air Station Traverse City hoisted Berg off the island and flew him to Marquette Regional Airport, where he was handed off to ground crews for the trip to a hospital. Officials said he was injured and hypothermic but alert, and was reportedly walking around the hospital before the last search teams had even made it off the island.

New details, days later

Park and state officials only laid out the full scope of the search this week, in briefings held Monday that described an operation drawing on personnel from at least five agencies plus civilian backpackers who helped narrow the search area. Michigan State Police Lt. Ben Eckola said investigators were "thankful that missing hiker, Craig Berg, was found alive and alert on Isle Royale," while a Coast Guard petty officer credited the rescue to "teamwork and what can be accomplished when first responders and members of the community come together."

Isle Royale is one of the least-visited national parks precisely because of its isolation — reachable only by boat or seaplane, with no roads and little to no cell service across most of the island. Park rangers have long urged backpackers to file detailed trip plans and carry satellite communicators, guidance Berg's ordeal is likely to renew.

Berg remained hospitalized for observation after his rescue. His family has not said publicly when he is expected to be released, but relatives told local reporters he was in good spirits and able to describe, in detail, how he had survived.