Deer trapped in thin ice near Kenora, Ontario. rescued with paddleboard, rope – Winnipeg | The Canadian News

A young deer is lucky to be alive after a daring rescue with unusual equipment on a lake near Kenora, Ontario.

Devin Bell, 31, was driving home north of Kenora on Wednesday afternoon when he saw something huddled in the middle of the freshly frozen. Black sturgeon lake.

When he stopped he realized it was a young deer, caught about 500 meters from shore.

With the help of his friend Johnny Neniska, Bell decided to take a closer look.

Bell says the deer was so still they assumed it was dead, but both he and the animal were in for a surprise when they crossed the ice, with a paddle board, to tow it back to shore.

“I put the paddle board next to it, I was kneeling on the paddle board and I grabbed the deer to put it on and then it came to life,” Bell said Friday.

“He started freaking out and jumping all over the place and making holes in the ice.”

Now, in the middle of a lake with only two inches of ice on top, standing next to a deer moving to break that ice, Bell and Neniska worked quickly to calm the animal down and put it on its paddle board.

But the deer did not agree to his plans.

“I tried dragging him onto the paddle board and he kept jumping,” Bell said.

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“So I ended up having to tie a rope to him and drag him because he wasn’t cooperating.”

After about an hour, the pair were able to pull the deer through the ice and back to shore.

Bell said the doe was too weak to stand up at first, but after about half an hour it got up and headed straight for the lake.

They grabbed the deer once more and carried it further to the shore and to a nearby bush, where Bell says he checked later to find only receding footprints.

Fortunately, the tracks got away from the water this time.

Bell says the deer probably slipped and fell after walking on the new ice and because there was no snow for its hooves to grip it, it was unable to get back up.

He says that she probably wouldn’t have made it through the night without his help.

“The wolves would have caught her, probably as soon as the sun went down,” he said.

Bell says this isn’t the first time he’s rescued a deer from the ice; pulled a big buck out of a freshly frozen lake around this time last year.

Despite the risks, Bell said he will likely do it again if he sees an animal stuck in the ice.

“I spend 90 percent of my time in the cold of winter on ice,” he said. “So I’m quite familiar with him, I’m not afraid of him.”