My brother and I took our mom down to Elbow on Mother’s Day for supper at the Harbor Golf Club restaurant last week. We’d been down there a couple of times in the past, and it always gives you a spectacular view of the harbor; the boats all lined up and tied up, bobbing here and there with the gentle laps of the water.
This time, the harbor was empty, and there was nary a boat in sight. Why? Because we were in Elbow on the last weekend before business down there will REALLY pick up, which is the Victoria Day long weekend that has now come and gone.
I like to think of Elbow and the surrounding region as the town of Amity in the legendary film, ‘Jaws’. It’s a summer town, and they depend on summer dollars. The tourism season basically explodes down there when the May long weekend arrives, so when we were down there on Mother’s Day, we were pretty much witness to the proverbial ‘calm before the storm’.
As I stared out over the water, I was reminded of two things; one, that I can’t wait to do some of my own fishing and swimming this summer, and two, that it’s never been more important to be safe in our popular local waters.
After all, we weren’t all that far from the very spot where my older brother Perry almost drowned after an accidental watercraft collision that dumped him into the drink and did its best to pull him down to its depths.
That was almost two full years ago in July of 2017, but I can tell you that the memories surrounding the incident haven’t dwindled much in the time since. In fact, they probably amplify when this warmer spring and pre-summer weather rolls around.
We live in a low-key state of denial, all of us. We never think that something is ever going to happen to us or anyone in our family until it does. I certainly didn’t think my brother was going to almost become one of the growing number of people who had drowned in a span of approximately six weeks.
The summer of 2017 was indeed a deadly one, with a terrible spike in drownings that will be forever remembered.
To be more specific, it was five – five people killed in local waters in just six weeks. It was bizarre, it was horrific, and more than anything, it was just plain heartbreaking.
Each case brought its own form of wrenching grief for the family and friends involved, but I believe the particular case of 17-year old Justin Warwaruk of Outlook is one that saw an entire community mourn and come together. Justin went missing on July 16 near the Fred Heal boat launch just south of Saskatoon in the South Saskatchewan River. His body was found five days later, and a wave of sadness blanketed Outlook and beyond.
There were others, too, and it’s absolutely baffling how close together the drownings were. On July 20, two Elbow-area men were thrown into the north side of Lake Diefenbaker during a raging storm that capsized their boat, ultimately leading to their deaths. On July 29, a man fell into the lake from a boat he was operating and attempts to rescue him were unsuccessful; he wasn’t found until August 6. Finally, over the Labor Dog long weekend on September 4, a 70-year old man from Saskatoon lost his life when he fell into the lake near Danielson Provincial Park when his boat capsized.
Such incredible loss of life in such a short time.
That was in 2017, and sadly, there was another more recent incident that took place in November of last year. A 46-year old man from Saskatoon lost his life when he drowned in Lake Diefenbaker near the Danielson Provincial Park west-side boat launch. He’d been taking part in a recreational scuba dive with three friends roughly 200 yards from shore when he suddenly lost contact with his fellow divers. The man was found a short time later, and CPR efforts failed to revive him.
I certainly don’t mean to remind people of these incidents to be a downer. I bring them up because no one in their right mind wants to see a summer like the one we had in 2017 come back and take more lives. The power that these lakes and rivers hold should never be underestimated, no matter how calm or unassuming the surface appears to be.
Have fun this summer. Enjoy yourselves. Go boating, tubing, skiing, swimming, fishing, all of it. But just remember that you’re a guest in that water, and it has the ability to make its presence known in a sad and tragic way, so be careful.
We don’t want to repeat history.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
