On Sept. 22, Kyle Yrjola went paddleboarding with his girlfriend, Jaycee Martin, off Fintry Provincial Park on Okanagan Lake.
“It was a beautiful day, calm waters. The weather was perfect. Not even a single wave, just smooth sailing. It was beautiful,” said Martin, 23 days after the incident.
The couple paddled out to the middle of the lake before deciding to turn back as the sun began to set. They were about two thirds of the way back when the weather began to change.
“The wind kind of started picking up. We thought, okay, we can get through this,” said Martin.
But the conditions quickly worsened.
Fintry Provincial Park, taken from Carrs Landing on Okanagan Lake.
Cohan Sassaman
“I said, ‘okay, hold on, babe. Like there’s some big waves coming,’” Martin recalled. “And sure enough, they just came and they just took him from me so fast.”
At this point, Yrjola was off the paddleboard and in the water. Martin tried to get the board to him, but with the paddles swept away, the board drifted out of reach. Within moments, she lost sight of her boyfriend.
Martin called for help as Yrjola disappeared from view.
“We called 911,” Martin said. “They told us to stay on our paddleboards.”
But by then, Martin was alone and doing her best to get to shore.
When police picked her up on the east side of Okanagan Lake, Martin thought Yrjola would be found somewhere along the shore.
“I didn’t even want them to pick me up at first, because I was so close to the shore. I kept telling them, ‘no, go find my boyfriend, like he’s out there.’”
For 23 days, family members were left searching for answers.
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That changed when a volunteer Hutterite dive team from Manitoba arrived in the Okanagan to help with the search.
On September 14, HEART, the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team — met with Jaycee Martin for the first time to develop a plan to search for Kyle Yrjola.
Cohan Sassaman
Led by Manuel Maendel, the team brought specialized sonar equipment to scan the depths of Okanagan Lake, searching for signs of Yrjola.
“As Hutterites, when someone is in trouble and we see them struggling, we want to reach out and help,” Maendel said. “It doesn’t matter where or how.”
Manuel Maendel at the helm, Jaycee Martin and the HEART dive team crew watched the sonar as the boat slowly moved across Okanagan Lake, scanning the depths for signs of Kyle Yrjola.
Cohan Sassaman
The team drove for two days to reach the Okanagan. With a boat that is fitted with GPS guidance technology normally used in farming, the crew followed precise, straight lines across the water while scanning the lakebed.
Maendel said the idea came from using GPS systems to guide farm machinery through fields. The same technology helps the team methodically cover search areas.
The boat is equipped with deep-water sonar and GPS systems designed for farm equipment. One screen even displays a large tractor instead of a boat.
Cohan Sassaman
The operation is volunteer-run and relies on donations and support from third parties to keep its equipment running to continue helping families searching for missing loved ones.
On Sept. 14, the Hutterite dive team arrived in the Okanagan and began developing a search plan with Martin, whose knowledge of where she and Yrjola had been paddling would help guide the search.
But the team arrived around sundown, meaning Martin would have to wait another day before the search could begin.
The divers also made it clear that finding someone in a body of water as deep as Okanagan Lake would be difficult. At depths reaching 600 feet, even specialized sonar equipment cannot guarantee a discovery. Sometimes, searches turn up nothing. Other times, divers may come across evidence of another person who had been missing.
The search began early the next morning, with Martin watching as the team scanned the depths of Okanagan Lake.
Manuel Maendel points out an anomaly on the sonar screen. It could be something, but without a visual confirmation, there’s no way to know for sure what’s beneath the surface.
Cohan Sassaman
Then, something appeared on the sonar.
“My heart dropped immediately because it looked exactly like a body,” Martin said.
While the sonar picked up the anomaly, the team couldn’t know for certain what was beneath the surface.
Without sending a camera down or getting a diver to visually confirm the object, there was no way to determine exactly what they had found.
After hours on the water, the dive team sent a remotely operated camera down to investigate the anomaly.
It was Yrjola.
“He was very kind and always so cool and patient. Yeah, most of all patient. A really good boyfriend and a really good best friend. A good friend to everybody,” Martin said.
Kyle Yrjola.
Jaycee Martin
Maendel described the feeling as “overwhelming.”
“To be able to put my arms around a family that I’ve been able to help fuels me for the next one,” Maendel said.
In the past 10 years, the volunteer team says it has helped more than 30 families, offering its services free of charge.
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