An unsanctioned search was held on Saturday to recover the body of a man who went missing on Feb. 12 while snowmobiling on the Ottawa River near Chapeau.

Robert Chartrand, 30, is presumed deceased after his helmet and snowmobile were recovered by searchers, as well as . . .

tracks leading to open water. His body has not yet been recovered.

Glenn Ranger, the organizer of the search, told The Equity on May 28 that he and some others had been conducting searches on their own time, but thought the extra manpower would be helpful.

“We’ve been checking the river almost every night,” he said. “We’ve put in a couple hours on the river every day until dark. We’re just thinking that more eyes on the river would be better.”

Ranger, the deputy fire chief of the Pontiac Ouest department led the initial search for Chartrand in February and said that recovering the body is personal to him. With the weather warming up, he was hopeful that the body might resurface.

“This has nothing to do with the fire department at all,” he said. “It’s just that … Robert, I trained his wife to be a firefighter and I got to know them … that’s why, it’s real close and personal to me. A lot of guys, maybe 80 per cent of the guys on our department are related to him, it’s a really big family around here. I waited and waited and nobody was doing nothing, so I decided to step in. I put it on Facebook and within minutes it was over 200 shares.”

Speaking after the search, he said that 25 boats showed up at the Chapeau docks and many more conducted their own searches over a wide swath of the river. Ranger said that he had focused his efforts between the Chapeau Bridge, near where Chartrand’s machine entered the water, and the Waltham area, but welcomed others to search the areas of the river they know best. In addition to the numerous boats, some equipped with sonar, local business Eagle Marine offered two hours of flight time searching the river.

Many local organizations such as the Waltham RA, the Waltham Station restaurant and even people as far away as the United States donated food and money to feed the searchers.

“We’re going to be searching from the Chapeau Bridge, just ahead of the bridge is where he went in. … from there, we were trying to concentrate it on the Waltham area, but we’ve been checking that every night and nothing’s come up,” he said. “Everybody’s telling us, well he’s probably down by Campbell’s Bay and places like that … Once we get past Waltham, the river opens up so big, it’s like a lake there and that’s where we need all the boats.”

Ranger stressed that if anything was found, either by visual or through sonar, to call him or someone who’s qualified. He has a direct line to the police officer handling the case, who will make the call of whether or not to send a dive team if something shows up on sonar.

“I got the blessing from the police, but very, very limited, nobody goes in the water,” Ranger said. “There’s no divers allowed, things like that. The only people allowed to touch the body are people who are trained in taking a body out, which I am, and the other two guys I’m with are trained to do that.”

Ranger said that Chartrand was wearing an orange and black jacket and tan work pants, and invited boaters further down the river to keep their eyes peeled. If they come across anything, they shouldn’t disturb it and should call police or the fire department for assistance.

Register or subscribe to read this content

Thanks for stopping by! This article is available to readers who have created a free account or who subscribe to The Equity.

When you register for free with your email, you get access to a limited number of stories at no cost. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to everything we publish—and directly support quality local journalism here in the Pontiac.

Register or Subscribe Today!