Former Kenora police chief dies while kayaking in Manitoba

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This article was published 16/05/2017 (3065 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kenora is mourning the loss of its last city police chief, who was identified Tuesday as the man killed last week in a kayaking accident in Manitoba.

Dan Jorgensen, 59, was kayaking from his hometown to Gimli — where he planned to go skydiving with friends to mark his 60th birthday — when his kayak overturned in rough waters at the base of Sturgeon Falls in Whiteshell Provincial Park.

RCMP reported the death Tuesday, but it occurred Friday night.

In a news release, RCMP said they took a call about 8:20 p.m. Friday from witnesses who had spotted a kayaker in distress in Nutamik Lake in the Whiteshell. They were too far away to help him.

When RCMP arrived, an officer went onto the lake in a patrol boat with a conservation officer. They found Jorgensen, who was wearing a life jacket.

Jorgensen was an avid outdoorsman who spent a lot of time canoeing and kayaking in regional lakes and rivers. His Facebook account is full of photographs of himself and various wildlife he encountered against backdrops deep in the boreal forest.

In his retirement, Jorgensen was a strong advocate for social justice, working to build relationships and services with Kenora’s homeless and indigenous populations.

“It’s just a tragic day for everybody in the city,” Kenora city Coun. Sharon Smith said by phone. “Dan was so well-loved. He was such a community man, such a good father and grandfather, a friend to all.”

Jorgensen oversaw the dissolution of the Kenora Police Service, when city council disbanded the force in 2009 and contracted the service out to the Ontario Provincial Police.

He once played a key role in a pivotal murder trial in Kenora. As a constable, Jorgensen stumbled on suppressed evidence and tipped off the Crown, braving the anger of his fellow officers to blow the whistle on wrongdoing.

The evidence led an explosive scandal and a 2004 Ontario Superior Court ruling that found a group of police officers had suppressed evidence in a racially charged murder trial for the homicide of a local man, Max Kagegamic, in 2000. No one was ever convicted in the murder.

Resignations of senior officers followed almost immediately after the ruling.

Smith, who recalled those days, said it was a brave thing for Jorgensen to step forward, and afterward, his principled stand made him the best candidate to take over leadership of the fractured force. He did his best to rebuild the service, she said, but in the end it was disbanded, and he retired.

“That’s when he started working on the issues that were really important to him, working with marginalized people,” Smith said. “To lose a person like that, who had so much credibility with everyone — it’s going to be very difficult to go on,” she said. “There’s no one who can replace him.”

Jorgensen’s funeral is set for 1 p.m. next Tuesday at the Whitecap Pavilion.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca