Easing financial burden on Mark Ham’s family

UPDATED on 5/15/24:

We’re absolutely devastated to share that our dad, Mark Ham, tragically passed away on a solo trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Clues are still coming in, but it would appear that he had some sort of medical event occur while in process of loading up his canoe. We suspect this would have occurred with the same end result whether he was out alone in the wilderness or back home.

Mark was an avid outdoorsman, taking solo trips to the BWCA 2x a year for decades. He and Cathie enjoyed trips to the Grand Canyon and had a trip planned to go down the Colorado River this fall.

When not on vacation, Mark was a clinical psychologist. He graduated from The College of Idaho for his undergraduate degree and the University of Chicago for his PhD. He was very popular and highly skilled at his job - he often had a waitlist of more than 6 months, with some clients traveling internationally to work with him.

Besides work, he also enjoyed woodworking, house renovations, and more recently, spending time with his 2 young grandchildren (who we don’t even know how to begin navigating this loss with. The 2 year old absolutely adores his grandpa. We are devastated that he will not get to grow up learning so many important things from his grandpa).

Mark is survived by his best friend and wife nearly 40 years, Cathie, in addition to his 2 children and their spouses (Molly/David and Will/Rachel) and 2 young grandkids (Isaac and August). Mark and Cathie made many sacrifices for their children in their formative years, including Cathie staying home to nurture and homeschool their children. As a result, their retirement planning was never at the forefront for them.

We are looking for help covering the cost of ground transport, medical examination, cremation, and memorial costs to ease the financial burden from this unexpected event.

EDITED/UPDATED 4/12/24: The US Forest Service reached out to us and assured us that the seaplane ride is at no cost to us. We wanted to update you and let you know that any funds raised will be going towards all memorial costs, transport, cremation, and we will discuss with Cathie how she would best like to use the remaining funds. If she doesn’t have immediate financial needs, funds will go towards the BWCA fund to preserve this important park and honor Mark's memory.

We also want to mention that this has hit the news and how they are portraying it is inaccurate. It is shameful how the media is using this situation and Mark as a scapegoat to remind people to wear their life jackets. The details they have provided are inaccurate. We will not have a final coroner’s report for more than a month, but what we do know points to him having some sort of accident (appears to be medical) and was likely on land for many days before getting pulled into the water. It is CRUCIAL for people to realize this was a freak accident, of NO fault of Mark’s, and it could happen to anyone. It’s easy readers to look for reasons that place blame on Mark so as to distance themselves and quickly jump to the conclusion that this would never happen to the reader. We fear that people will simply read the news article and assume “it only happened because he was negligent and didn’t have his life vest on.” From how he was found, it was clear he was not yet in his canoe when the incident occurred.

If you would rather donate on everloved, here is that link: https://everloved.com/life-of/mark-ham/donate/. We appreciate all the stories coming in.

5/15/24:

We have set a date for Mark's service for Saturday May 25th at The Beach House on Park Point in Duluth at 11:30am. Please dress adequately for an outdoor service. You should be seeing an official Obituary posted to the Duluth News Tribune for this upcoming Saturday.

If you knew Mark personally and have any stories, memories, photos, etc, our family would be extremely appreciative of you taking the time to share with us. We set up an e-mail account specifically for this purpose. Please reach out to a family member for access to this e-mail account.

Thank you from all of Mark's family