DAWSON CITY – A canoe mishap in the Klondike River near Rock Creek on Wednesday night and Thursday morning could have ended very badly.

Fortunately, the two canoeists had been rescued by early Thursday morning, and are both at home recuperating after a harrowing adventure.

Alyssa Friesen, office manager at the Klondike Sun newspaper, and Curtis Collins, director and program chair at the Yukon School of Visual Arts, were not expecting any trouble when they rented a canoe from Castlerock Canoe in Dawson.

They took it out to Rock Creek for what was to have been an evening’s paddle back to Dawson.

Collins had already made the trip on the three days previous to this outing with a different paddling partner with no difficulty.

They started out at 6:30 p.m. and were in trouble not long after that.

Collins figures that this time, he just turned into the wrong channel, and they were suddenly faced with a much more turbulent current and many overhanging and low-hanging sweepers.

Avoiding one took them across the water into another, and just like that, the canoe flipped, spilling them both into water so cold that, as fire chief Jim Regimbal said later, “If it wasn’t moving, it would be ice.”

Collins says they both tried to push the canoe to shore, but there were too many things in the way and the current was too fast.

He yelled to Friesen to grab onto another sweeper and get to shore.

Heading downstream for another 15 minutes or so, he tried to stay with the canoe but was so buffeted about that he had to give up that plan. He found his ability to move being hampered by the increasing cold and the impact of other tree parts floating in the turbulent water.

Seeing what looked like a shallower stretch coming up, he abandoned the canoe and swam/crawled his way onto what turned out to be a gravel island surrounded by high water and fast currents. He would be there all night.

Friesen, meanwhile, found she had not the strength to force her hands to work properly in the cold.

Her rubber boots were dragging her down, so she managed to get them off and swam/floated to a small island she could see off to one side.

She stayed there for some time, trying to get her movements under control and recover from the initial shock.

After what seemed a long time, Friesen reluctantly decided to enter the water again at what seemed to be a shallow point, and made her way to the far shore, the shore away from the roadways.

Using a canoe paddle as a staff and bushwhacker, she decided her best bet was to walk upstream to where she would come to the settlement of Rock Creek.

In her bare feet, the trek was an ordeal that took hours.

At around 5 a.m., however, she came upon the outbuildings of Kerrsdale Farm, where the Sadlier family has been living for the last year.

Initially, she just saw barns and thought she might take shelter in one of those, but then she spotted the house.

Jennifer and Loren Sadlier weren’t quite up yet when they heard noises from their dogs and thought there must be an animal loose on the property, but one of their sons came to tell them there was a girl at the door.

Jennifer went to find Friesen, clad in shorts and T-shirt, wearing a life-vest and clutching her paddle.

Sadlier says they brought her inside, and worked at getting her warmer, as she was numb with cold.

After about 15 minutes, she was able to ask to use a phone and called her editor at the Sun (yours truly).

Seeking to clarify just where the canoe had gone in the water so as to be able to pass this on to searchers, he contacted Karen Dubois to locate the owner of Castlerock, Colm Cairns. He and Dubois decided to phone the authorities.

She called the RCMP and I called Regimbal to get things rolling.

Dubois learned that someone in Rock Creek had already called in with the word that they had heard a voice out that way shouting for help.

That would have been Friesen, who was seeing all kinds of animal signs during her struggle and, walking in fear of encountering a bear or a moose, was yelling and singing and making lots of noise.

Meanwhile, Collins was on his larger island, where he had managed to get two or three fires going to dry off his clothes and warm himself up.

He said he wants to recommend Bic lighters for this sort of situation. Initially, his hands were so cramped from the cold that it was hard to do anything, but they eased as he warmed up.

Eight hours after his rescue, he found it amusing that the other residents of the island, some nesting seagulls and geese, did not appreciate his presence there. He says the geese kept honking at him all night and the seagulls kept dive-bombing him.

In Dawson, Regimbal had also called the Mounties and Ranger Sgt. John Mitchell to get the search and rescue operation under way. This was to be a water and air effort.

Mitchell told Regimbal to go with the RCMP in the helicopter while another crew took the search and rescue boat. It was the chopper’s occupants who spotted Collins’ fires and saw him waving as it bobbed back and forth across the river.

“Less than 10 minutes into the search, I spotted some smoke coming from one of the gravel bars and saw him waving at us,” said Regimbal said.

“I said to myself, ‘That’s my ride,’” Collins said later on.

He had realized that this aircraft, unlike the many planes both he and Friesen recall seeing pass overhead while they were stranded, was looking for him.

Regimbal bundled him into the chopper (stopping to make sure all three fires were out) and then back to Dawson by land. In town, he insisted that Collins visit the Dawson City Hospital to check on his injuries before going home.

The Sadlier family brought Friesen across the creek in their motorboat when they took their children across to catch the school bus.

I took her back to town, with the heater in the car cranked up high. Regimbald also insisted she go to the hospital, so she did, after a quick stop at her apartment to get her health card ID.

They were kept under observation, wrapped in blankets, treated for injuries (Friesen’s feet in particular) and released later in the day.

“The river is ugly, and it’s flowing so fast,” Regimbal said.

“People should stay off it for another week or so. The snow melt coming out of the Tombstones and the valley area just has to go somewhere.

“This could have been a real tragedy,” he added. “You don’t normally end these things on a good note. I’ve never had a good one before, especially 12 hours later,” the fire chief added.

“This one all went well, right from getting the chopper to everything. As (RCMP Sgt.) Dave Morin said to me (Thursday) morning, ‘I just can’t believe how things come together in this town.’”