Three 17-year-old girls from Minnesota are thankful to be reunited with their canoe group after being swept off-course on Monday.
Shortly after 11 a.m. yesterday, RCMP received a report that the three canoeists from the Minnesota Canoe Club had gone missing while on Manitoba’s Pigeon River. The three were travelling as part of a canoe trip, which begun 24 days earlier on McCuster Lake in Ontario.
The rest of the group became worried that the three were missing when they failed to meet up with their crew at Sturgeon Falls. Using GPS, 911 was called after the four of the six remaining group members could not locate the girls.
A helicopter was chartered at about 2:30 p.m. and the girls were located 20 kilometers downstream from Round Lake on Pigeon River. Luckily, a group of four canoeists in the area from Brantford, Ontario found the girls first.
The three teens spent one night sleeping in garbage bags, as some of their gear, including their canoe, had been washed away in the river. They were missing for approximately 40 hours.
Besides being tired, wet and a little shaken up, the girls were not injured in the ordeal.
RCMP Search and Rescue, the Manitoba Office of the Fire Commissioner and the RCMP Bloodvein Detachment assisted in the search.
— With files from a news release
Image credit: WildernessSpirit.com
