The August long weekend started out the same as any other day for Ron Piasetzki and Mackenzie Ryan at their cabin on Calling Lake.
“It was a perfect morning. The water was absolutely crystal clear, calm,” Ryan recalled about the morning of Aug. 2.
Since the two had had no luck fishing in front of the cabins recently, they decided to head out into the lake towards the ranger station.
“Normally, because I was only going out for a short time, I just would have fished right in front of the cabins,” Piasetzki said. “I asked Mac where he wanted to go, and he wanted to try somewhere else.”
At 9 a.m. they headed out onto the lake.
After shutting off the big motor, Piasetzki fired up the trolling motor, and they started to fish. For half an hour they trolled along, catching only one fish.
Piasetzki and Ryan then heard something peculiar. A faint voice yelled out.
“In the distance we heard, ‘Hey,’ which was kind of odd that there was not a cry for help,” Ryan said.
Piasetzki added, “We looked in the direction of the voice, and it looked like there might be someone in the water.”
The shape in the water was quite a distance from the boat, but Piasetzki and Ryan decided it looked like someone in trouble.
“We raced over to take a look,” Piasetzki said. “When we got there, we found a man in the water. He was hanging onto what appeared to be a blow-up toy and wasn’t wearing a lifejacket.”
Ryan said, “Ron yelled out to ask if he needed a hand, and he said yes. I grabbed him and pulled him into the boat.”
Ryan noticed the man was out of breath and was freezing cold. The man had been in the water for several hours after his boat capsized.
The man then told Ryan and Piasetzki they had to save his friends.
“I just felt sick instantly. There was no one around,” Piasetzki recalled.
However, the man pointed, and they could make out something in the water in the distance.
“We couldn’t make out what it was. It was white, and it looked like something sticking out of the water,” Piasetzki said.
Ryan added, “It was a long way … and as we got closer and closer, you could see the boat was nosed out of the water.”
As they approached, they realized two men were holding onto the boat, and one of the men was trying to keep a dog above water.
“It was pretty crazy just to see the whole scene,” Ryan said. “They were freaking out, teeth chattering and saying, ‘Get us out of here.’”
Piasetzki said the man holding the dog insisted they get the dog into the boat first.
Ryan heaved the dog and the two men into the boat.
“They had no strength. They could hang onto the boat, but that was about it,” Ryan said.
A buoy was then tied to the boat to ensure it could be located later, and Piasetzki raced his boat towards his cabin.
Ryan said the men were really far out into the lake as it took more than 10 minutes for them to reach the shore.
Calling Lake is 138 square kilometres, and the water reaches depths of 18.3 metres, according to the University of Alberta Atlas of Alberta Lakes.
“We covered them with every blanket, quilt, sleeping bag we could find. They were shaking like leaves,” Piasetzki said. “Then we called 911.”
During the minutes before the ambulance arrived, Piasetzki discovered the men had gone out in the boat at 6 a.m. and had been in the water for several hours.
Piasetzki noticed one man was injured.
“The one man who insisted we get the dog in first, he was just raw. His chest and stomach were all scratched and cut,” he said. “He was trying to save the dog.
“I’m sure it was trying to climb up him all the time. He was trying to hold it up next to the bit of boat,” Piasetzki said. “I’m sure it was well panicked, too.”
Ryan said during their time on the lake that morning they only saw two other boats.
“I think they were quite a ways out, and they expected someone would come by,” Piasetzki said. “I think fate was somehow working that day.”
Piasetzki can’t believe the choices he and Ryan made that morning led them to saving three men and a bulldog.
“I mean, had we not gone fishing in that direction, and had I not had an electric trolling motor so that we could actually hear the guy, and had he not done the wrong thing and left and tried to swim to shore …” Piasetzki reflected. “It was one of those things. They say you are supposed to stay with the boat, but it is lucky he didn’t.”
When the men’s boat capsized, they were floating closer to shore, but the wind changed and started taking them further out into the middle of the lake.
“The one guy said that as they were hanging onto the boat, the shore was getting closer, but then the wind changed and they said it started disappearing,” Ryan said. “I don’t know how far that guy swam, but I don’t know if he would have made it the whole way. They were far out.”
Once the ambulance arrived, the men were transported to Athabasca to be treated. They were released later the same day and came back to thank Ryan and Piasetzki.
“That was very nice,” Piasetzki said.
Piasetzki went to retrieve the boat from the lake and said using his fish finder, he discovered the water was 30 feet deep where the boat was.
“We dragged it to shore. It took us a couple of hours, but we managed to get it to shore,” he said. “It was an older, small fibreglass with a closed-in bow.”
Without a closed-in bow, the boat most likely would have sank.
As a rule, Piasetzki has all his boating passengers wear a life jacket — a policy Ryan agrees with.
“The water is a very powerful resource, and if it wants to take you out of the boat, it will happen, and what if you get knocked out?” he said. “All it takes is one second — it could happen.”
Piasetzki also said that if he were fishing alone that morning, it would have been a battle to get the men into the boat on his own.
“I have a little ladder that I can stick on the side of the boat if I take people swimming in the lake,” he said. “ I think I’m going to put that in my boat and keep it there permanently.”
Although Piasetzki and Ryan don’t recall the names of the men, they will remember their 2013 August long weekend for years to come.
Calling Lake Fire Brigade chief Barry Schmidt confirmed three men were pulled from Calling Lake on Aug. 2.
