Families of 3 boaters recovered from Lake Winnipeg finally have closure, First Nation chief says

The leader of a Manitoba First Nation community in mourning for the three boaters who never made it home after a fishing trip says the families finally have closure.

The body of the third and final boater still missing on Lake Winnipeg was found Sunday, putting an end to a search for the three men that began at the end of June.

The bodies of Delaney McGillvary, 29, Tyler Ballantyne, 31, and Rayden Dick, 28, have now all been recovered.

“We’re grateful that the young men were found and brought home for closure for the families, but also for the support that our search has received from all of our friends and relatives across the province,” said Misipawistik Cree Nation Chief Heidi Cook.

McGillivray, Ballantyne, and Dick were fishing in Lake Winnipeg when they failed to return home after hunting a moose. A search at the north basin of Little Moose Lake was initiated June 28.

The bodies were recovered with the help of the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team (HEART), a non-profit that specializes in finding and recovering drowning victims across Canada.

“We’re farmers, so we worked that lake like a field, just mowing the lawn, just running patterns back and forth,” said Manuel Maendel, the operations coordinator at HEART.

HEART used state of the art equipment and highly trained diving crews to assist the RCMP with the search.

“This has been a month-long traumatic experience. This family was camped by the water for a month,” Maendel told CityNews.

“Its an incredibly special feeling to be able to step in the gap for those families and bring the loved ones home.”

Cook says the men were skilled fishermen and hunters and followed the traditions of their people with pride, adding the community was proud of who they were.

“There’s a little bit of comfort knowing that they died doing what they loved,” she said.

Cook says the community must take time to heal, as the families prepare to lay their loved ones to rest.