Area residents and Facebook friends who had been cheering for Gilligan were happy to learn he made it out of the hole where he had been swimming and was able to take flight.

Earlier this winter, the loon was seen swimming in open water on the Crow Wing chain of lakes, near Nevis, weeks after the other loons migrated to spend the winter in warm waters down south. An attempted rescue was not successful and the loon's own success to get out of its predicament was left undetermined — until now.

“We call it Lake Gilligan now,” said Debbie Center, who had spearheaded attempts to rescue Gilligan on Dec. 8 while he swam and dived in a hole in the ice approximately 25 feet in diameter. She last saw her loon on Dec. 18.

Gilligan was named after the castaway character on TV’s “Gilligan’s Island.”

Center did not hear from the people who saw Gilligan fly away Dec. 19 until Jan. 24, when a member of her lake association contacted her after reading what she wrote about Gilligan in the group’s newsletter.

The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, emailed Center: “I wanted you to know first hand that we know that Gilligan flew away. On Dec. 18 my husband and a friend were fishing on our lake. They saw Gilligan taking runs at flying from the ice. When they made it back out Sunday the 19th, just after lunch they witnessed Gilligan fly over the tree line and away."

Center said she called the woman and asked if there's any chance it was a merganser they saw, and she said absolutely not. “He (her husband) was close enough to Gilligan on the 18th and 19th to watch him doing the penguin dance right on the ice, doing little test runs on the ice itself, and then gliding back into the water! He said that Gilligan never actually flew on the 18th, but then on the 19th he saw him gain flight and head over the tree line!”

Center said the guys who saw Gilligan fly off were close enough in the spot where they had walked out to ice fish Dec. 19, but due to being loaded down with gear they were not able to take a picture.

“I was shocked,” Center said. “I can hardly believe it! He made it! We got our miracle! We as humans don’t have to interfere with nature and save everything. These creatures are equipped with certain skills of their own to get out of messes they get into.”

Center said that while she has seen loons return when there is still ice when they return to the lake in March, she has never seen anything that indicates loons can take off to fly from ice. That means that Gilligan most likely was able to take flight from running on the water in the small hole he was swimming in.

Loon rescue experts in Wisconsin, who Center had been in contact with during the attempted rescue, posted on her Facebook page “Loony for Loons,” which has 7,000 followers: "We personally have witnessed loons taking off from a small area of open water and gaining altitude over the ice.

To see the original article and related stories, follow this link to the Park Rapids Enterprise website. https://www.parkrapidsenterprise.com/sports/northland-outdoors/gilligan-the-castaway-loon-made-his-g...