Missing couple, toddler safe after night on lake

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/11/2010 (5731 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A couple with an 18-month-old baby was found safe but very cold after a night-long ordeal — braving bitter temperatures — in the Island Lake area of northern Manitoba.

An all-night search concluded happily Wednesday morning when the couple’s boat was spotted at about 9:45 a.m., Manitoba Search and Rescue Association search commander George Leonard said Wednesday.

The man, from Garden Hill, and the woman, who lives with their toddler in St. Theresa Point, were safe in the boat with their baby.

The couple, both in their 20s, said they didn’t make it it to St. Theresa Point around suppertime Tuesday as expected because they became lost in the gloom and then ran out of gas after taking off from Garden Hill.

“They got lost and that’s easy to do, every island up there looks the same,” Leonard said, adding the couple was found about two kilometres east of St. Theresa Point.

Temperatures dropped to -11 C overnight, which compelled searchers to keep looking despite extremely poor weather, freeze-up conditions and zero visibility.

The couple was smart and made the right decision once realizing they wouldn’t be found before morning.

“They stayed in the boat. They were confident that there would be searchers and they would go and find them. They found them, floating,” Leonard said.

The couple is not being identified.

The night search was called critical to the rescue even though the couple was not found until morning because it narrowed down the locations left to search in the daylight.

“And you know, you’re not going to out-search a First Nations person on their own land,” Leonard said. “The communities did a phenomenal job. There were six to eight boats from each community; there must have been 50 people searching.”

 

— Staff