Leah Pelletier,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
An afternoon paddle on the Kananaskis River turned into a rescue mission for two rafters who had to put a life jacket on a foal to save it from drowning on Saturday, July 12.
Canmore local Anna Gleig and her friend, Ava Haddad, were rafting when they came across a frantic herd of horses downriver. Pinned to a concrete bridge post, they noticed a young foal fighting to keep its head above the water.
“[The horses] were all sort of panicked and the mom was essentially kind of in the middle of the river trying to get our attention,” said Gleig.
With the water going as deep as 12 feet in that section, the pair knew they had to take action quickly.
“We thought that we should at least try to help, so we passed by it originally. We were both like, ‘OK, let’s attempt to try to save this foal,’ but we didn’t want to put ourselves in danger too because it is a river,” said Gleig.
Looping back, the pair dragged their boat upriver and dropped in again, getting themselves close enough to reach out and grab the foal’s neck from inside their inflatable raft.
“It was kind of a panicked grab around its neck and … one of us was holding him and the other one was paddling [to] get to the shore on the other side and then dealt with it from there,” Gleig said.
Once safely to shore, Gleig and Haddad waited for the foal to calm down and realized in the chaos, its herd had left, crossing to the other side of the river away from them.
“When we were attempting the rescue, I think we scared away the rest of the horses, so the mom left and never did come back so that’s why we were kind of stuck with this horse not sure quite what to do with it,” said Gleig.
The two thought the foal would be fine now that it was on land, but every time they tried to paddle away it followed them back into the water.
“Eventually, we just decided we can’t leave him here. [We] strapped a life jacket on him, picked him up, put him in the boat and he had a little nap there,” said Haddad.
“He was very, very tired initially … because he was very close to going under, unfortunately,” added Gleig.
After calling several people looking for answers about what to do with their new boatmate, the girls called Gleig’s parents who had several contacts in the area.
Getting connected with a rancher from Mînî Thnî, the paddlers continued downriver for about 25 minutes pulling out around Seebe where they said goodbye to the less than one-week-old foal.
“It was just very exciting that we were like, ‘OK, we did it, we got him out, like he’s safe,’” said Haddad.
“[It was the] right time, right place, everything like that.”
Gleig said the foal was loaded into a truck and taken back to its herd, where it was reunited with its mom.
“It was a really, really good ending.”
Leah Pelletier,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Rocky Mountain Outlook
