Seems like the crazy freezing weather kayaks are pretty useful after all. The story about Dave reminded me about another dog rescue story that occurred back in 2005. Here it is in its entirety:

Kayaker Saves Dogs Life

You can guess by now that today’s day paddle on the good old North Saskatchewan River was, shall I say, an extraordinary event. I wanted to be out there today because the fall colors are coming out in the forested river valley. I was hoping to spend time trying to get that perfect picture to define autumn. The paddle started off as uneventfully as launching onto a flooding river can be. Yep, the river here is at flood levels again this year. Seems anyone living in North America is having water problems of one kind or another. The level of the river is not causing any hardship at all to residents of Edmonton. It’s just a big PITA for old paddlers like myself who like to paddle upstream. The current is moving very fast, probably over 8-9 km/h so my progress upstream was severely tested. The rowing club has stopped allowing boats on the river until levels settle down some. Their docks are all bent out of shape, swept this way and that way and the boats are jammed between them and driftwood.

The riverbanks have seen either tremendous erosion or been built up by tons and tons of fine sand. In some areas where there was once low hard packed gravel beds at water level, there now sits four foot high banks of fine sand that makes a perfect spot for a riverside picnic on a hot day. I stopped on one such bank to rest during a long upstream paddle a couple of weeks ago. I had fun wading into the silky soft sucking mud that swallowed my legs up to the knees before my feet hit the gravelly bottom.

All that said, I enjoyed the paddle, having stayed near the shoreline where the current was fairly slow. I did frolic in the eddy of a large submerged stone that created a nice set of standing waves. Once I got the kayak properly aligned over the waves, she shot forward quite nicely. I played at that a couple of times before moving on. One of the reasons for today’s paddle was to test the Pentax Optio WP 5.0 digital camera I now own. Man, did it get a test. Read on!

It was shortly after leaving the standing waves that I heard a woman calling out a name. As I neared a storm sewer outfall I spotted a woman wearing red coat and calling to her dog, a small spaniel named Chloe. I saw two dogs, one small black dashound and another small pooch that looked like a miniature husky. That was when I saw Chloe. She was resting on the riverbank near the water’s edge, panting heavily. She didn’t see me approach because her attention was directed towards her two canine friends who were hopping about kind of frantically but never approaching Chloe by more than a couple of feet. Chloe made a sudden effort to leap out of the water and up onto the bank but the fine sodden bank gave way under her feet and collapsed toward the rushing current of the river. I could see that Chloe was in trouble. Her owner was calling Chloe’s name repeatedly to urge Chloe to keep trying to climb out of the quagmire.

I could see plainly that Chloe was going to drown if I didn’t help her. Every time Chloe moved the bank gave way under her, dissolving the sodden sand into more water thus making the quagmire looser, so much looser that Chloe was getting sucked into the submerged mud. I urged the woman to allow me to help Chloe and she consented. I also urged her NOT to call Chloe any further because her calls to Chloe were only causing Chloe to struggle and sink further into the mud. I figured that Chloe had no more than five minutes left to live because the bank was oozing into the current and being washed away.

I could see plainly that Chloe was way overweight and if Chloe were swept into the current then she’d quickly be drowned. I eased the VJ as tight into the oozing bank as I could get. Unfortunately, my presence caused Chloe to struggle harder thus causing more of the bank to collapse. I talked to Chloe with a gentle voice, told her it looked to me like she got herself into some real trouble today. In the meantime I had jammed a blade into the muddy river bottom on my left side and used the paddle to try to shove the VJ in closer.

I managed to get the right side of the VJ jammed up near Chloe’s tail, or at least where her tail should have been. She was deep enough into the mud now that her back was beginning to disappear. Her owner wanted me to simply shove her up the bank but I couldn’t do that because the mud was too loose. Any push I gave to Chloe’s backside sent her head in deeper. I decided to pick up Chloe and set her on my spray skirt. With a firm grasp, I grabbed her collar and carefully pulled her toward the VJ. This was a critical point in today’s rescue because if anything happened to offset my balance, I’d have been swimming with Chloe. As Chloe’s body curled towards the hull of the VJ, I yanked her firmly by the collar and settled her right in the middle of my lap on the spray skirt. Here is where the Pentax Optio found its test. Chloe’s muddy behind was firmly on top of the camera and I couldn’t get the camera without risking knocking Chloe off the boat.

I moved Chloe to a nearby bank that seemed firmer and shoved her off the VJ. She immediately sank up to her haunches so I told the owner that I would have to paddle about 100 meters upstream to an area where I knew the banks to be firm and gravelly. She concurred and so began my very slow and careful way upstream with a sodden filthy dog on my lap.

I spoke gently to Chloe, said her name repeatedly and made certain that she stayed between my arms. I paddled with the lowest possible stroke to keep her contained on the spray skirt. Twice I thought she was going to jump ship so I brought my arms together with her pinned between them. Within a few moments I came upon the more stable banks. There, Chloe spotted her mates and became excited. I encouraged Chloe not to do anything goofy like try to jump ship. Chloe sat still, preferring the relatively more relaxing company of a strange man in a kayak to a dip in the swirling floodwaters of the North Saskatchewan River.

I summarily shoved Chloe off my lap when the bow of the VJ ground onto the gravelly shore. Her owner was very happy to see Chloe again. She seemed to think that if I hadn’t come along then she would have had to go down after Chloe. I suggested to her that if she had done that, I’d have had to rescue her as well. That would have been a challenge, she must have weighted over 250 lbs. Well, I’m always up for a new challenge, eh!
The owner and I spoke for a short while before I opted to head a little further upstream. The rest of my day paddle was relatively uneventful. I was eager to get off the river today after the rescue because the mud in my shirt was preventing my clothes from drying quickly.

I wonder what I will find around the next bend. Hmmmm!

Robert N Pruden