A ground, water and air search resumed Monday for two of four people in two canoes who went over a waterfall in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness this past weekend, officials said.
Cmdr. Nate Skelton of the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office said the search for the two paddlers, who are from the metro area, resumed at 7 a.m. and involved remote-controlled submarines, a drone and personnel on the ground.
People in “one of the canoes got into some distress, and the others tried to give assistance,” Skelton said. “That’s when they both went over the falls.”
“The water is rushing pretty hard through the falls,” Skelton said, noting it’s one of the challenges the search operation is facing.
To help in the search, Superior National Forest officials have closed, through Tuesday, all trails, campsites, portages and bodies of water associated with Iron Lake, including LaCroix-Bottle portage, LaCroix-Iron portage and Crooked Lake west of Sunday Bay.
On Saturday about 7:20 p.m., a caller reported the canoes went over Curtain Falls, between Crooked Lake and Iron Lake on the Minnesota-Ontario border, the sheriff’s office said. The caller said two people were missing and at least one other person was badly injured.
Sunday after midnight, a state Department of Natural Resources helicopter removed the two surviving canoers, one of who is now hospitalized in Duluth. The Sheriff’s Office rescue squad said its personnel brought them to safety from a campsite.
The Sheriff’s Office identified the missing canoers late Monday morning as Jesse Melvin Haugen, 41, of Cambridge, and Reis Melvin Grams, 40, of Lino Lakes.
