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.
IDs released as search resumes for two of four canoers who went over Boundary Waters waterfall
People in one canoe were in distress, and the other canoers tried to help them, authorities said.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
May 20, 2024 at 8:06PM
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.
Injured while going over the falls was Kyle Thomas Sellers, 47, of Ham Lake. Canoeist Erik Michael Grams, 43, also of Ham Lake, was unharmed. Located at the campsite was Jared Jay Lohse, 33, of Cambridge, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Haugen was one of the canoeists trying to come to the rescue of the others. Broc Vierzba said Haugen and Reis Grams are friends, and Reis and Erik Grams are brothers. Sellers is a friend in the group.
“This is totally like Jesse,” Broc Vierzba said of his friend Haugen. “He was in the Army. I know he did a couple of [overseas] tours. ... Just a solid, reliable guy. If anyone’s going to make it out there and carry them out, that’s Jesse.”
“Friends, two families and a wide circle of friends are devastated ... by the events at Curtain Falls in the Boundary Waters,” read a statement late Sunday from the rescue squad.
None of the boat’s occupants, two adults and two juveniles, were wearing life jackets, officials said.
