The Bodies of 2 Canoeists Who Went Over Waterfall in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Have Been Recovered

A member of the St. Louis County Rescue Squad examines a drill hole at the base of Curtain Falls during the search for the missing canoeists. (Credit: St. Louis County Rescue Squad)

ELY, Minn. (AP) — Authorities have found the bodies of two men who went over a waterfall while fishing near the Minnesota-Ontario border last month.

Deputies found the remains of Reis Melvin Grams, 40, of Lino Lakes, on Monday in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of northern Minnesota, the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department announced. The agency located 41-year-old Cambridge resident Jesse Melvin Haugen’s body on Friday.

The sheriff’s department has said Grams, Haugen and two others were fishing at the top of Curtain Falls between Crooked Lake and Iron Lake on the border last month. The group’s two canoes went over the waterfall after paddlers in one boat tried to help the other canoeists. The two others survived, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

Bad weather had hampered the search for Grams and Haugen. The sheriff’s department had said at points that cloud cover was too low for aerial surveillance, and rain kept a crew from searching until conditions improved.

Superior National Forest officials had closed trails, campsites, portages and bodies of water in the area, to assist in the search.