Tragedy behind, hunt of a lifetime ahead: Waseca officer Arik Matson leaves for Alaska adventure

Three years in the past nearly to the day, Arik Matson minimize brief his dinner at a Waseca restaurant and sped in his police cruiser to a modified life.

A name had are available in a few yard prowler with a flashlight, and Arik, then 31 years previous and sporting Waseca Police Division Badge 222, was going to test it out.

At house in close by Freeborn, Arik’s spouse, Megan, about the identical time was placing their two daughters to mattress, Audrina, then 7 years previous, and Maklynn, 5, and planning to show in early herself.

None of them may have identified that their lives have been about to intersect with that of Tyler Robert Janovsky, 37, a “meth head” as one cop would later describe him.

Janovsky was the man within the yard within the 900 block of Third Avenue S.E. in Waseca, and when Arik arrived together with two different officers, Janovsky climbed onto a storage roof and began capturing.

One spherical struck Arik within the head, shattering the precise frontal lobe of his mind.

. . .

Arik was 9 years previous when his uncle Paul Matson first took him duck looking.

Possibly it was the scent of a dank marsh on an early morning. Or maybe the sight of blue-winged teal cupping their wings over decoys.

Or just the chance to be along with his uncle.

No matter it was, from that day ahead, duck looking turned Arik’s ardour, a lot in order that years later, at Minnesota State Mankato, when he met Jeremy Henke in a category and the 2 turned associates, Arik wished to go alongside what he had realized from his uncle.

“We have been each finding out regulation enforcement,” Henke mentioned. “When Arik graduated, he acquired employed as a deputy in Freeborn County, whereas I labored for a 12 months as an officer in Lake Crystal. Then I acquired on as a deputy in Freeborn County as properly.

“As a result of we have been the brand new deputies, we regularly labored the evening shift collectively. Typically in October, we might get off work at 5 within the morning and go duck looking. He knew so much about duck looking, together with the place to go. So it was nice.

“Our friendship continued when Arik moved on to the Waseca Police Division, and when, in 2015, I turned a Division of Pure Sources conservation officer.”

. . .

Chris Tetrault can be a DNR conservation officer, posted in Stillwater. He’s additionally ex-Military, and together with a small group of different regulation enforcement officers and army veterans, about 5 years in the past he fashioned a bunch known as Hometown Hero Outside.

The concept was to assist individuals like themselves — first responders, basically — who have been going by way of powerful instances.

“Our objective has been to get people who find themselves on the entrance traces and who need assistance due to one thing that is occurred to them, to get them outdoor, to do one thing they take pleasure in, to encourage them whereas they meet new individuals,” Tetrault mentioned.

“Our bread and butter is looking and fishing. However we have taken individuals on scorching air balloon rides, ATV rides, canine sledding journeys — no matter they need.

“We began small, right here in Minnesota. However we’re in 26 states now and we have taken greater than 4,000 individuals outdoor. Nationally, we’ve 150 regulation enforcement officers and others who’re volunteers. Nobody will get paid.”

. . .

Chad Davis can be a DNR conservation officer, stationed in Owatonna. After he heard Arik had been shot, he known as Tetrault to ask about placing collectively a visit for Arik.

“He likes to hunt geese,” Davis advised Tetrault.

Neither Davis nor Tetrault knew on the time that Arik had lengthy dreamed of looking king eiders, an elusive and superbly plumed sea duck that’s hunted in just a few locations in North America.

One is Alaska, off St. Paul Island, a 43-square-mile spit of rock within the Bering Sea, inhabited by solely about 500 individuals and infrequently featured on the TV present “Deadliest Catch.” Mendacity about 320 miles west of the Alaska mainland, the island is 770 air miles from Anchorage.

“On the web there is a video known as ‘To Kill a King,’” Arik mentioned the opposite day. “That is the place I first realized about king eiders and king eider looking.”

Looking circumstances on the island are sometimes horrendous, with small boat rides onto raucous seas beset by unpredictable currents and tides. Amid the maelstrom, typically from snowy, windblown redoubts, the eiders are intercepted.

“You are going to be chilly, you are going to get wind in your face and you are going to get rain in your face,” a information says within the video. “If you cannot settle for that, you haven’t any enterprise being out right here.”

Arik was nonetheless in a Twin Cities hospital — he was hospitalized for 3 months earlier than being transferred to an Omaha rehabilitation heart, the place he stayed for seven months — when he was advised that Hometown Hero Outside had awarded him an journey anyplace in North America.

At first Arik mentioned, “I wish to go bear looking in Canada.” Which confused everybody, as a result of he had by no means hunted bears, nor expressed an curiosity in them.

Then he modified his thoughts. “I wish to hunt king eiders off of St. Paul Island, Alaska,” he mentioned.

. . .

On Friday, Arik, alongside along with his uncle Paul, Jeremy Henke, two videographers from a St. Paul firm that’s producing a documentary on Arik’s restoration, and Chris Tetrault will board a Delta flight to Anchorage. From there, on Saturday, climate allowing, they’re going to fly to St. Paul Island.

For Arik, his uncle and Henke, it will be similar to previous instances, looking collectively.

Tetrault, in the meantime, will assist Arik get round.

And he’ll need assistance.

“Arik nonetheless loves being a husband to me and a father to our women,” Megan Matson mentioned. “We’re so impressed by the progress he is made. He is had a few setbacks, however he simply pushes himself that a lot tougher.

“He is completely different, although. Because of the traumatic mind damage, his character is totally completely different from earlier than. That is been an enormous adjustment for me that I nonetheless have not totally accepted.

“Bodily, he nonetheless struggles along with his left arm. However when he is given a shotgun, and he goes duck looking like he did final fall, his arm appears to work like the whole lot is linked.

“I am excited for him for this journey, to get away and to be in his looking aspect along with his finest buddy and his uncle and the brand new associates he is made. He’ll pay for it ultimately. He’ll be exhausted for per week or two.

“However it’ll be value it.”

. . .

Janovsky was given 35 years for capturing Arik.

On the sentencing listening to, along with his Waseca Police Division badge swinging from a series round his neck, and with Megan alongside him, Arik mentioned:

“From at the present time ahead, I select to dwell life to the fullest, belief God’s plan and by no means take something as a right.”

Then he mentioned, “[I] would nonetheless reply to that decision if it have been tomorrow.”