Toddlers drown in northern First Nation lake

Two drowned toddlers were pulled from a lake Wednesday at Garden Hill Anisininew Nation.

Island Lake RCMP received a report at 1:45 p.m. that two boys had been rushed to the First Nation’s nursing station after a possible drowning, Mounties said in a news release Thursday.

Officers were told the boys, ages one and two, had been found in the lake by a family member and taken to the nursing station by the First Nation’s safety officers.

Police said it’s believed the boys managed to leave their home, entered the nearby lake and drowned.

Foul play is not suspected.

The incident is not the first fatal drowning of young children in Garden Hill. In June 2023, RCMP said a 23-month-old boy was found in a lake outside his home in the community. The child was in the care of his older siblings at the time, police said. He was taken to the community’s nursing station and airlifted to Winnipeg, where he died in hospital three days later.

“This is devastating for the family and the entire community,” Sgt. Chris Hipolito of the Island Lake RCMP detachment said in a news release. “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragic incident.”

The Manitoba Lifesaving Society’s Northern Water Smart team was in Garden Hill just weeks before the drownings, executive director Lynne Stefanchuk said.

The program works with northern and remote communities to provide water-safety education based on their needs. Stefanchuk said the team provided its “Swim to Survive” course in Garden Hill for older children, along with other programming in neighbouring communities.

“Our heart just breaks for them for a tragedy like this,” she said. “It’s really awful for any family or any community to have to go through it.”

Stefanchuk said remote communities can face barriers to water-safety education, including their distance from major centres and difficulty accessing certified instructors and basic safety equipment.

“If you’re remote, you’re remote, and it’s hard to access certified instructors on a regular basis,” she said. “The access to water safety education can be really challenging if you’re not near a major centre.”

She said young children can drown in just a few centimetres of water and urged caregivers to keep toddlers within arm’s reach.

“Things can happen really, really fast,” she said.

The deaths come less than a month after two brothers drowned at Nutimik Lake in Whiteshell Provincial Park. Ten-year-old Maximo Au Ramirez and his 13-year-old brother, Aaron, entered fast-moving rapids at Sturgeon Falls on July 18. Their bodies weren’t recovered until later that week.

Garden Hill is located approximately 610 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

RCMP continue to investigate.