Douglas Low, 36, well known big game guide, was resting up at his home on Strickland Street in Whitehorse today, but still retained vivid and uncomfortable memories of his harrowing experience in the icy waters of the Tagish river on Monday.
Doug was at Tagish that morning, checking up on his pack horses in that area. He was crossing the Tagish river in a 16-foot aluminum boat at a point a mile and a half above the Tagish bridge to inspect a meadow on the far side of the river.
The river is quite swift at this point and when his boat capsized he was thrown into the swirling, icy waters. The ice had formed for a distance of 100 feet from the shoreline so he decided to let the boat go and try to swim to the opposite shore. But the water was too cold and he realized that he would never make it as he was becoming paralyzed with the cold.
He turned back and was able to catch hold of his boat . He was too numbed and weak with cold by this time to try and climb into the boat so he clung to the back of it and paddled it and himself to shore.
Called for help
Due to his weakened condition he was unable to clamber up on the ice so he continued holding the boat and hollering for help. It was well below freezing at the time.
Shortly after he had started yelling for help, Robby Rose, 17, son of Mrs. Archie Currie, walked out on the Tagish bridge. He heard Low's calls for help but thought at first that it was a moose calling. He hurried back into his home near the bridge and he and his mother, and step-father Archie Curie, got into their car and started up the road. As they travelled slowly along, still listening, they realized that the calls for help were coming from a human being.
Blankets and fire
When they finally spotted the man on the river bank they rushed back for a boat and managed to get Low into it. They took him across the open water to the far side of the river where they placed him in blankets and started a roaring fire.
Mrs. Currie, in the meantime, had hurried back to the trading post run by Harold White and the latter took off with his dog team after phoning to Whitehorse for a plane, or ambulance.
Dogteam and Ambulance
After White had brought the half-frozen man back to the trading post with his dogteam he was placed aboard the Currie car which started off for Whitehorse and met the ambulance on the way out. Mrs. Low, having been advised of her husband's accident, was aboard the ambulance when it met the other car on the road,
By Tuesday morning Low was out of danger and making a speedy recovery at Whitehorse General Hospital.
In telling the Star about her husband's ordeal, Ida Low recalled that Doug had experienced another close call two years ago when he was driving his pickup across the ice on the same river and broke through but managed to make it safetly to shore.
