New Zealand YouTuber rescues Manitoba dog during cross-Canada canoe trip

August 7, 2024 Canuck

A YouTuber from New Zealand made a surprise Manitoba pit stop on his cross-Canada canoe trip last week when he rescued a dog he found trapped in the water near The Pas.

Tom Hudson was heading out of the northern town on July 29 when he heard an unusual sound coming from somewhere in the water behind him and turned his boat around to investigate.

“I just heard a very faint, very faint barking and decided to check it out,” the 41-year-old said. “And thank God I did.”

Not far away was a dog he later learned was a 14-year-old Great Pyrenees named Ivy, who had recently gone missing from her nearby home.

When Hudson found her, she was trapped under a large log and mostly submerged in the water, and her long white fur was heavy with mud.

He tied his canoe up and got the log out of the way, but quickly realized the dog was in rough shape and couldn’t move her back legs anymore because of exhaustion — so he did what he could to lift her as he brought her through knee-deep mud to his canoe and put her on top of it.

A man in a canoe. — Hudson says he’s glad he was able to save Ivy from the water she was stuck in last week. (Tom Hudson/Instagram)

“She obviously hadn’t been able to rest or sleep, because obviously if she did, her head would have dropped under the water,” Hudson said. “She was just there in the water, awake and exhausted.”

He learned later that Ivy had never been on a canoe before — which explained the look of terror on her face as he helped her onto the boat.

A dog looks terrified. — Ivy’s owner says she had never been on a canoe before her rescue. (Tom Hudson/Instagram)

Together, they made their way about 300 or 400 metres to the next dock. When they got there, he put Ivy on the dock.

He saw her paw prints in the mud nearby and followed them in the direction of a house, where he rang the doorbell, hoping the person who answered would be her owner.

‘Pretty lucky old dog’

Thankfully, it was — and Tom Stait said he was relieved his dog was finally coming home after he’d spent a day and a half looking all over for her.

“She’s a pretty, pretty lucky old dog that he came by when he did,” he said. “Because he could have went the other way on the other side of the river and he would never have seen her. I probably would have never found her.”

He said the spot where she was stuck wasn’t far from their home — but because of the thick bush she was trapped behind, he couldn’t hear or see her when he was out searching.

A dog gets a bath in a small pool in a yard. — It took a while for Ivy’s owner to get her all cleaned up after her rescue. (Tom Hudson/Instagram)

While the detour was unexpected, Hudson said he wouldn’t have done things any differently.

“Being hundreds of metres from your home, probably able to hear your owner, probably able to smell your owner … I just thought it would have been a terrible way to go,” he said. “So there was no way I could have not done what I did.”

‘She’ll remember him’

Stait said while his dog is all cleaned up, she’s still a little traumatized by the ordeal and hasn’t gone far from home since — but he thinks she’s grateful to the man who saved her.

“She’ll remember him, I think,” said Stait, who invited Hudson to stay for dinner and spend the night after the rescue before he took off to continue his trek across Canada.

Hudson said he started his journey at the Saskatchewan River Crossing in Alberta and hopes to reach Montreal before he goes back home to his job as a sailboat captain. He plans to return to finish the cross-country trip next spring.

The trip has already given him his first sightings of animals like moose, wolves and bears, and it’s his first time in a canoe.

While he expected it to be about experiencing Canada’s natural beauty, he’s been pleasantly surprised at how much the country’s people have become a part of his solo expedition.

A white dog. — Ivy is all cleaned up from the ordeal but still a little traumatized and hasn’t gone far from home since, her owner says. (Submitted by Tom Hudson)

“All the good people in the world just seem to be here,” Hudson said.

“I’m not pulling up anywhere asking for help, but Canadians are just so willing. And they just hear about my story and what I’m doing and they just say, ‘What can I do for you? What do you need?'”

Hudson said he hopes his journey, which he’s documenting on his YouTube and Instagram accounts, can inspire people to live life the way they want.

“I would never tell people to quit your job and go and do what I’m doing,” he said.

“But if what I’m doing can even just put a little idea in someone’s mind about, you know, ‘Hey, I want to experience life as it should be experienced,’ then that’s my goal.”

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