“David Suzuki’s boat with Shirley Ann Reiter was first at the scene and he pulled them out of the water and to safety. David then jumped into their swamped canoe […] and paddled, alone, several kilometres down the river to an area called Bear Flats, where he gave the keynote address to hundreds of people who had gathered to oppose the Site C dam. Keep in mind the guy is nearly 80 years old,” said Dr. Faisal Moola, the David Suzuki Foundation’s director general for Ontario and Northern Canada, who posted an account of what happened on his Facebook wall.
The Peace River is known for its frigid waters and boaters who fall in can quickly succumb to hypothermia, even in summer.
According to Moola’s Facebook, Suzuki capsized his own canoe on the Peace River and nearly drowned 40 years ago during his first struggle against the Site C dam.
Suzuki rushed to the rescue at the 10th annual Paddle for the Peace event on July 11, billed as a celebration of northern BC’s scenic Peace Valley, currently slated for development by the Site C dam project.