Missing paddleboarder’s body found in Okanagan Lake after 23 days

Kyle Yrjola went paddleboarding with his girlfriend, Jaycee Martin, near Fintry Provincial Park on Okanagan Lake on Sept. 22. Martin said the day had been calm and clear. They paddled to the middle of the lake and turned back as the sun began to set. About two-thirds of the way back, the wind picked up and conditions quickly worsened. Martin recalled warning Yrjola that large waves were coming, then seeing them sweep him from her.

Yrjola was in the water. Martin tried to get the board to him, but the paddles had been swept away and the board drifted out of reach. Within moments, she could no longer see him. She called 911 and was told to stay on the paddleboard. Alone, she tried to reach shore. Police picked her up on the east side of the lake. Martin said she had not wanted them to take her at first because she was close to shore and kept urging them to search for her boyfriend.

For 23 days, Yrjola’s family had no answers. A volunteer Hutterite dive team from Manitoba then came to the Okanagan to help. The Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team, or HEART, was led by Manuel Maendel and brought specialized sonar to scan the lake depths. Maendel said that when Hutterites see someone struggling, they want to reach out and help, regardless of where or how.

The team drove for two days to reach the Okanagan. Its boat uses GPS guidance technology normally found in farm equipment, allowing the crew to follow precise, straight lines while scanning the lakebed. Maendel said the approach came from using GPS to guide farm machinery through fields and helps the team cover search areas methodically. The boat is equipped with deep-water sonar and GPS systems designed for farm equipment; one screen displays a large tractor instead of a boat.

The team arrived on Sept. 14 and met Martin to develop a search plan. Her knowledge of where she and Yrjola had paddled would help guide the search, but the team arrived around sundown, so she had to wait another day for it to begin. The divers cautioned that finding someone in a lake as deep as Okanagan Lake would be difficult. At depths of up to 600 feet, even specialized sonar cannot guarantee a discovery. Some searches find nothing; in other cases, divers may come across evidence of another missing person.

The search began early the next morning, with Martin watching as the team scanned the lake. An anomaly appeared on the sonar. Maendel pointed it out, but without visual confirmation the team could not know what was beneath the surface. Martin said her heart dropped because it looked exactly like a body. After hours on the water, the team lowered a remotely operated camera to investigate. It was Yrjola.

Martin described Yrjola as kind, cool and patient, and said he was a good boyfriend, best friend and friend to everyone. Maendel called the experience overwhelming. He said being able to put his arms around a family he had helped gave him fuel for the next search.

The volunteer team relies on donations and third-party support to keep its equipment running and help families searching for missing loved ones. It says it has helped more than 30 families in the past 10 years, providing its services free of charge.