An Annandale man died in a boating accident Sunday, April 17, when his kayak overturned in the fast-moving Snake River near Pine City. Jason P. Ray, 30, was pronounced dead Sunday afternoon at the Pine Medical Center in Sandstone north of the scene, Pine County Sheriff Mark Mansavage said. The cause of death was drowning. Ray and four friends had entered the Snake River in Pine City and traveled in kayaks and canoes to the east side of Cross Lake where there’s a dam across the lower Snake, the sheriff said. According to others in the group, Ray decided to kayak over the dam, Mansavage said. The dam is only about three feet high but the water moves at a rapid pace, creating a lot of undertow. While the others portaged around it, Ray, who was wearing a life jacket, shot the dam and the undertow rolled his kayak over. The sheriff said Ray’s cousin, Nathan Anderson, reported he saw the kayak go straight up in the air, pulling Ray under the water. Anderson later found Ray face down in the water about 200 yards downstream and pulled him out, Mansavage said. The sheriff’s office received the emergency call at 3:08 p.m. Ambulance and fire department personnel pulled Ray up the steep bank of the river and tried to revive him but couldn’t. The kayak ended up about 100 yards downstream at a bridge over the river. It remained there Monday, the sheriff said, because the water was moving so fast that it pinned the craft against the bridgeworks. With the spring runoff, the river is moving “much faster than normal,” the sheriff said. “We’ve been advising the tourists not to use the river for canoeing or boating or kayaking,” he said. “It’s just too fast.” Though the local radio station and newspaper have carried warnings, Ray and his group probably weren’t aware of them. The river is quiet where they started, Mansavage said, but it turns faster downstream, and the lower Snake has rapids and rocks on the other side of the dam. The dam looks simple, he said, but with the undertow “it’s really churning it up.” “It’s deceiving to some.”
