My wife and I are planning to fly cross country in a Cessna 182 to Yellowknife, NWT next month, and I'm doing the preflight planning.

Some of the terrain we'll be flying over is remote boreal forest - mainly sprurce, fir and other conifers interspersed with numerous small lakes and rivers.

One possibility I have to consider is an engine problem that demands a forced landing a considerable distance away from the nearest habitation.

I've put together (with the help of Doug Ritter's site) a medium-sized yet comprehensive set of emergency equipment with the help of which I'm reasonably confident (as much as one can be) that we would be just fine with a stay of up to three or four days in the forest, which is about as long as I can imagine it would take a SAR effort to reach us, even allowing time for poor weather to pass.

One thing I'm undecided about is whether it's a better idea to ditch the plane in a lake (at the edge of the water), or land in the tree-tops. I have a long list of pros and cons to both choices, but I'm interested to hear what others speculate about the subject. Maybe hearing some other informed (and uninformed) opinions will give me some insight.

My wife and I have both undertaken underwater emergency egress training and the aircraft has lifejackets (but not a life raft). Lets assume that I'm competent to perform a by-the-book approach and landing in both cases, but I'm without engine power so I can't perform a low pass to scout the lake shore in advance for debris for instance.

I've read Doug's pages about ditching, including Paul Bertorelli's article where he says
Quote:
All things considered, when faced with landing on the water or impacting trees, rocks, or other rough surfaces, the water is more likely to be survivable. Where this might come into play is during an emergency landing where the choice may be between a crowdedbeachor a rough wooded area and an expanse of open water. This should be no contest; the water wins."
Yet other equally authoritative sources suggest that an emergency landing into dense woodland is also eminently survivable, and has the benefit of not requiring me to swim any distance with - or possibly without - emergency gear in tow. It also leaves me the aircraft (whatever shape it's in) as a resource to use. On the other hand landing in the treetops - if they be sufficiently dense - has the potential for stranding the aircraft some distance above the ground, and we are neither equipped nor trained to rescue ourselves from that scenario, even uninjured.

If rescue was near then I think I would probably take the water landing, but in this case I expect a longer period without outside help, and I think that moves the balance towards a dry landing.

I hope that others can throw in some ideas that might help me think this through.