Using many hundred feet of rope and a flat-bottomed boat a group of local men rescued a doe and fawn who'd got stranded on the ice on Lake Kashagawigamog on the morning of Dec. 8. /PHOTO SUBMITTED By Chad Ingram
Published Dec. 13 2018
Two deer are alive after they were retrieved from the icy surface of LakeKashagawigamog where they were stranded on the morning of SaturdayDec. 8.
“I’d seen on Facebook there were a couple of deer out on Kash” Chris Coumbs told the Times . “Once I heard I went down and had a look.”
Coumbs said he could see the two deer – a doe and her baby – out on the icesome 300 yards off the lake’s west shore. A crew that included hisbrother Ken son Kevin Bunn cousin Terry Sicard as well as LarryLittle and his son Isaac and a few others set about the process ofbringing the animals back to shore.
Coumbs told the paper he was able to borrow a 10-foot flat-bottomed boat and headed off to the hardware store to purchase 400 feet of rope to add to the hundreds of feet he already had. Those ropes were tied together tocreate a tether that was affixed to the boat some of the men standingon shore holding the ropes while a group of three headed out across theice. Two 20-foot lengths of rope were attached to the back of the boatfor the looping of the deer.
The animals were stranded on a section of glare ice where they were unable to stand up.
“They were trying to get up but they didn’t have the strength or thetraction to get up” Coumbs said. “They would have froze to death orstarved to death.”
Coumbs was cautioned not to go out on the ice but told the Times for him that was not an option.
“I wouldn’t have slept that night” he said. “It was totally impossible to leave them there.”
When the men reached the deer they put ropes around them.
“We looped the doe and the little one we looped them both” Coumbs said.The men then skidded the deer across the ice using the boat carryingthem up to the road when they reached the shore. The entire process took about an hour.
The fawn who Coumbs said was quite frightened and exhausted was placedunder a tree while its mother trotted into the woods nearby. Coumbssaid he was overcome with an immense sense of satisfaction as he watched the creatures return to the forest.
