A man in his thirties has drowned in the Outaouais River near Vaudreuil-Dorion.
The incident occurred when a man and a friend, riding on separate snowmobiles, decided to stray from a riverside snowmobile path at around midnight.
One of the snowmobiles broke through the thin river ice, while the second was able to brake in time before suffering the same fate.
The second snowmobile rider made a futile attempt to save his companion.
Rescue teams later came to the area near Rousseau and Meloche, about 45 km west of downtown Montreal, in an attempt to recover his body but their attempts bore no results.
Veteran snowmobiler Nathalie Mancuso, who lives nearby, said that there are too many risks involved in going off trail in that area.
"We know not to go past a certain point and we always stay on the trails that the federation clears," Mancuso told CTV Montreal on Sunday. “Here it’s a meeting of two rivers, the Outaouais and Lac St. Louis. There’s a lot of current. The snow will cover it but the ice is not thick at all because of the current.”
