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Two brothers from Winnipeg, aged 10 and 13, are believed to have slipped into the fast-moving rapids near Sturgeon Falls Trail in Manitoba’s Nutimik Lake on Saturday.
RCMP say a search is underway involving their underwater recovery team and the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team (HEART).
Officers were called just after 12:30 p.m. Saturday about the possible drowning in Whiteshell Provincial Park after the boys fell into the rapids and had not resurfaced, RCMP said in a news release on Sunday.
Police and local firefighters and other emergency responders searched the water and along the shorelines using boats and drones, but the boys have yet to be found, the news release stated.
Staff Sgt. Cory Meyers with Lac du Bonnet RCMP said the search is focused on an area surrounding the falls and its current.
“We’ve had success in that general area in the past. But as we keep searching here, we’ll slowly keep expanding a bit more into Nutimik Lake,” he told CBC News on Sunday afternoon.
While police are still fairly early in the investigation, Meyers said there are “strong indications” that the two boys may have drowned.
The search is ongoing.
Meyers said the two boys and their father had travelled from Winnipeg to visit the park with friends on Saturday.
Meyers said the boys’ parents have been on scene with police and are “devastated by the situation.”
“There’s some hope here [that] we can get some closure for them,” he said.
A 38-year-old woman drowned at the same location in June 2025 and a 12-year-old boy drowned there in May 2023.
The falls are a wide set of rapids between Numao and Nutimik lakes, which are wide parts of the Winnipeg River, about 135 kilometres east of Winnipeg near the Manitoba-Ontario border.
Meyers said the rocks around the falls are very slippery and the current is very dangerous.
“If folks … get too close to the edge or they get caught by the water, they’ll enter the water very quickly and it’s very difficult, just with the current, to get back out,” he said, encouraging people to keep a safe distance away from the water near the falls.
Wearing personal flotation devices, like life jackets, can also help keep people safe in and around the water, he said.
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