CANOE TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 27 May 1929, Page 5

CANOE TRAGEDY

; AT ISLAND BAY. (By Telegraph—Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, May 26. An unwitnessed tragedy occurred on Saturday afternoon when Eric Douglas aged I7i years,' residing with his parents at Donald McLean St. Newtown, was drowned through his canoe overturning at Island Bay. Douglas, who was a tailor’s apprentice, left town on Saturday afternoon at about 1 p.m. for Island Bay. He was accompanied by a boy named Claude Jupe, resident at 9, Gordon Street, Newtown. . The two went out in a canoe belonging to Douglas and I’eturned to the shore. Then Douglas said ho was going across to’the island off shore and left in the canoe alone. Jupe was otherwise engaged on the eastern sliore. Shortly afterwards, Jupe’s story goes, he saw a crowd on the western beach. Jupe proceeded there and found that his friend had been recovered from the water. Nobody seems to have witnessed the tragedy Three men named Duncan, Johnson and Sutherland, while standing on the shore near the launch harbour, saw an upturned canoe and a pair of hands showing above the water. They went over to the spot in a. dinghy and' with the aid of grappling irons recovered the body of Douglas, and brought it ashore. The hoy’s mouth was full of sand. Dr Line gave what assistance he could, and Douglas was removed to the Wellington Hospital where the doctor could only pronounce life extinct.