Editor’s note: Now includes information about positive identification of body.
A body recovered from the Cascade Gorge area of Christina Lake on Aug. 6 is that of a 50-year-old Scottish man that went missing after a tubing accident on July 28.
Grand Forks RCMP’s Staff Sgt. Jim Harrison told the Grand Forks Gazette this morning (Aug. 7) that there was a positive identification on the body, next of kin had been notified and everything is now in the hands of the BC Coroners Service.
Christina Lake Fire Chief Ken Gresley-Jones confirmed that a body was recovered by the Christina Lake Fire Department at Cascade Gorge late on the morning of Aug. 6 and was handed over to the Grand Forks Funeral Home.
The body was spotted by tourists in Cascade Cove according to Christina Lake’s fire chief.
“They swam out to see and they said they were certain it was a body but they couldn’t get hold of it and basically it was lost for a little while and we discovered it down by the entrance to where Christina Creek runs into the Kettle River – obviously it came out of the falls sometime (the morning of Aug. 6),” Gresley-Jones said.
Along with the Christina Lake Fire Department, the coroners service, RCMP and Grand Forks Search and Rescue were on hand.
The July 28 tubing accident occurred when three people on a tubing trip down the Kettle River were swept over Cascade Falls.
The bodies of Christina Lake residents Ronald and Jacqueline Legare were recovered shortly after the accident but the body of the Scottish male was not immediately found despite the efforts of search crews.
Harrison told The Gazette last week that the body could be trapped in the falls.
“Our experience in the past has been that the bodies resurface after a couple of days or anywhere up to a week. We’ll be maintaining a vigil on the falls to see if, in fact, that does occur and we’ll recover the body,” Harrison said at the time.
