The body of a Calgary woman was pulled from a lake near Vulcan on Sunday and a search for her fiancé was called off as darkness set in on Monday night.
Wayne Stertz and Kamber Lindenbach were last seen setting out on Lake McGregor in a boat at about noon on Sunday.
The couple’s boat was found drifting on the water several hours later by another boater.
“We decided to go up the lake and look and hopefully the people made it to shore and were walking along the shoreline there and after a couple of kilometres we couldn’t see anybody, we decided to turn back and that, looking in the water and my son-in law noticed what looked like a yellow bag or something floating so we turned around and that’s when we discovered the girl floating about two feet below the surface,” said Gord Ouellette.
Quellette says he found Lindenbach’s purse and three dogs inside the boat but there was no sign of the couple.
“There was three big dogs in the boat and dehydrated, very dehydrated,” he said. “Gave them water and everything.”
He says the water was choppy that day and that it would not take much for the boat to drift away from the couple if they went in for a swim.
“It was hot, but windy, there was white caps,” said Ouellette. “It was so hot out they maybe jumped overboard for a quick dip but with the waves pushing the boat they might not have been able to catch up to the boat and it happens just in an instant.”
Police say Lindenbach was not wearing a lifejacket and that they did not find any in the boat.
Officials searched the lake for Stertz all day Monday and say they covered all searchable areas and found no sign of him.
Police have called off the search for now and say they will continue to follow up on any leads and initiate additional searches if necessary.
Friends who worked with Lindenbach at Fortified Fitness in the city’s southeast are shocked by her death and say she will be greatly missed.
“She touched all of our lives in so many ways, down here, she was just an amazing human being, beautiful inside and out. There’s no word to really describe her and how we’re feeling right now, she’s a great person,” said Aaron Wiebe. “It’s like losing a sister.”
“She was more of a life coach, I think. Anybody that’s been impacted by her life, she’s always there to listen and hear people and she really just had a passion for life and it showed in everything she did. She’s an absolute beautiful soul,” said Annette Milbers. “My heart aches for everybody that she’s touched and her family and her mom and there just really are no words.”
“Her smile and her laugh and how she could take you from zero to sixty in .2 seconds. She was just the most uplifting person ever,” said Deidre Hemphill.
Lindenbach’s friends say the couple had planned to be married on August 13th.
“They had an amazing wedding planned. They were going to go on top of a mountain with just a photographer and a minister and get married and do photos up there and then come down and just do a back yard party with all of her closest friends,” said Wiebe.
RCMP say they have now notified both families.
