{"id":103863,"date":"2017-05-24T02:57:25","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T06:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=103863"},"modified":"2017-05-24T02:57:25","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T06:57:25","slug":"my-hero-two-fathers-and-their-young-sons-die-in-manitoba-canoeing-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/05\/24\/my-hero-two-fathers-and-their-young-sons-die-in-manitoba-canoeing-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"‘My hero:’ Two fathers and their young sons die in Manitoba canoeing accident"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A young man says he’s devastated after his father and his dad’s best friend died in a canoeing accident in northern Manitoba along with two of their sons. (Photo: Basheer Tome\/Flickr<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THOMPSON, Man. \u2014 A young man says he’s devastated after his father and his dad’s best friend died in a canoeing accident in northern Manitoba along with two of their sons.<\/p>\n

James Cripps says it’s surreal that his father and younger brother are gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just feels like your entire world crashes down on you,\u201d he said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

RCMP said a search began on Monday after the four paddlers were reported overdue from a trip on the Burntwood River north of Thompson.<\/p>\n

Police officers and firefighters launched two rescue boats and chartered a helicopter. Several boaters in the area also took part.<\/p>\n

The overturned craft and the bodies of the four canoeists were found in the water.<\/p>\n

Police said all the victims were wearing life jackets. They were all from Thompson, about 740 kilometres north of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

Loved ones say Shane Cripps, 44, and Conor Sykes, 33, were best friends.<\/p>\n

Cripps’s son Dylan, 14, and Sykes’s son Liam, who was six, were with them on the excursion.<\/p>\n

James Cripps, 18, said he looked up to his father.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad was my hero, obviously. He’s everything I aspired to be as a man when I grew up. He taught me so many lessons. He’s been there for everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just an awesome, awesome guy. All families have their disagreements at times, but he never hesitated to tell me that he’d be there for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his brother Dylan was his best friend and he remembers being there to catch his little brother when he was just learning to walk. Later, they loved to play hockey together.<\/p>\n

If ever the brothers had a big fight, everything would be fine the next day, he said.<\/p>\n

He remembered one time when his dad fell into the water when their canoe tipped on a lake. He was able to swim back to the boat and get back in and everyone had a good laugh about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time someone falls in the water, everything’s OK, you’re going to laugh about it after,\u201d Cripps said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time they weren’t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The elder Cripps was a well-respected entrepreneur in northern Manitoba, who had an ecotourism lodge, restaurant and other ventures, said friend Jody Linklater.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very influential in starting businesses and employing lots of people from the north,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Linklater, who knew Cripps for 15 years, said they were working together on organizing northern Manitoba’s first sanctioned mixed martial arts event in June.<\/p>\n

He said Cripps’s wife, Li, has told him she wants to honour her husband’s legacy by going ahead with the \u201cThrow Down in T-town\u201d event, but it’s been postponed until the fall.<\/p>\n

Linklater said Dylan was a great kid. Linklater had played Ping-Pong with him just four days ago.<\/p>\n

He said the family was tight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey spent a lot of time together and canoeing was one of the activities that they liked doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linklater said he doesn’t understand how all four could have died, but he noted that ice has remained on the Burntwood River longer than usual this season and the area got some snow in the last week or so.<\/p>\n

Lindsay Catherine Rose Sykes told CBC News it was the first canoe trip of the year for her husband Conor, their son Liam and the Cripps pair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a baby girl. Her name’s Annabelle. She’s four and she lost her best friend, Liam, her brother, and her daddy,\u201d Sykes said through heavy sobs. \u201cWe were so happy. We were such a happy family.\u201d<\/p>\n

She posted a photo on Facebook of her husband smiling at the boy on his lap with the caption \u201cloves of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The photo garnered several messages of condolence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is absolutely heartbreaking. I can’t imagine what you are going through,\u201d said one.<\/p>\n

Another said: \u201cShocked and sad. If there’s anything we can do, please let us know. Love you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THOMPSON, Man. \u2014 A young man says he’s devastated after his father and his dad’s best friend died in a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":103864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16],"tags":[19495],"class_list":["post-103863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-canoe","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}