A stand-up paddle boarding competition on the Kananaskis River last weekend took an unexpected turn for one competitor who leapt into action to save a drowning dog from the river’s raging, icy waters.
Jackie Stefaniuk’s dramatic rescue effort on Sunday was captured on camera by onlookers, including Stefaniuk’s husband Bill.
She had just finished competing in a downriver race at KanFest — an annual whitewater festival on the river — and was paddling laps on a big elbow drop section known as cartwheel corner.
“I was standing on shore getting ready to do another lap and this woman came over to me and she says ‘excuse me, I don’t know what your skill level is, but there’s a dog stuck in an eddy across the river and he’s gonna drown. Do you think you can help?’ ”
Stefaniuk, who is from Cochrane and an experienced paddler and swiftwater rescue technician, didn’t hesitate to heed the call.
“She pointed to the dog and I could see him in the eddy. I jumped into the water and then I went into rescue mode, and so I got onto my board on my knees.”
Stefaniuk navigated the current with great effort to paddle into it, but it did not change the fact the dog, struggling to claw its way out of the river onto a sheer rock face, wanted nothing to do with her.
“He was desperately trying to get out of the water and trying to scale the cliff, but it was a sheer, vertical face. There was no traction,” she said. “He had his two front paws out of the water and was trying to scramble, and then he’d fall back in and the current would swirl him around.
“He was in a panicked, visceral survival mode.”
It took Stefaniuk a few attempts, but eventually she got hold of the medium-sized black dog by the scruff of his neck and pulled him aboard.
She described the section of river as comprised of Class 2-plus rapids.
“Being in that water is a very challenging place to be as a swimmer. So, I just tried to calm him down and get him settled a little bit so he wouldn’t jump off,” said Stefaniuk.
Journey to safety helped dog reunite with his people
Next, she had to determine where to safely paddle the dog ashore — and where he came from.
She debated bringing the dog to the other side of the river, but soon realized he must have come from above and presumably fell into the water.
“That’s where his people were. He wanted to get back up there.”
With the help of a kayaker for downstream safety in case the dog jumped back in and was carried away by the river, Stefaniuk re-entered the fast-moving current and set out to return the dog to its owners.
When she and the dog reached a safe outcropping of land, the eager pup jumped within two metres of the shore and was “out of there.”
“He went up the mountain and he was reunited with his people,” said Stefaniuk.
People can be heard cheering in the background of the video.
Hani Ammache, who was out for a leisurely walk in the Canoe Meadows area of Kananaskis Country that afternoon, also caught the entire effort on camera.
The Calgary man was watching whitewater enthusiasts during KanFest when he earlier noticed the dog struggling to hang on to the opposite side of the riverbank, at the bottom of a steep cliff.
“The dog was hanging to the rocks. He knew he was in danger. So, I just started screaming. I went into hysteric mode,” said Ammache.
Ammache said he was considering jumping into the river to swim across and save the dog when Stefaniuk came to the rescue.
“I was really tempted to jump in and help him, but I was scared, also, because of the idea the river could take me and I could die,” he said.
Ammache said he did not witness how the dog came to be in the river but also thought it might have fallen from the cliff’s edge into the water.
Neither Stefaniuk nor Ammache were able to speak to the dog’s owners after all was said and done.
“When he leapt off my board and raced up the hill and you could see his people up there … I mean, that was pretty awesome. That certainly made me smile and I felt really good about that,” said Stefaniuk.
— Rocky Mountain Outlook