A 73-year-old Nepean woman has been identified as the victim of a drowning in the Klondike River near Dawson City, Yukon earlier this week.
Shirley Sandziuk and her husband Bill, both avid canoeists, were in the water Wednesday when her boat was swept under. The RCMP blamed the incident on a sweeper - a tree that falls into a river and alters the current.
Her life jacket was halfway on when the canoe flipped; she had just removed a layer of clothing.
Sandziuk's husband managed to escape to shore and spent two hours on foot looking for help. Police said it was a miracle anyone survived.
Employees with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans found her body while counting fish about five minutes from downtown Dawson City, the Whitehorse Star reported.
Emergency crews tried to revive her but without success. The cause of death was listed as drowning and hypothermia.
"She died doing something she loved in a place she loved, with the person she loved most in the world," her daughter Sue Sandziuk told CTV Ottawa on Saturday.
"I asked (Dad) if her life jacket had been completely done up if he thought she would have made it. And he didn't hesitate - he started to cry and said no, she wouldn't have."
The couple, awaiting their 50th anniversary this November, would rent a truck and visit the region for up to seven months at a time. This was Shirley's sixth trip to the Yukon, while it was the seventh for Bill, a retired RCMP officer.
They put in the Klondike near the Dempster Highway just before 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday, Sue said.
Sandziuk will be cremated in Vancouver and buried at Beechwood Cemetery, she added.
Sandziuk is also survived by two other children and nine grandchildren.
