Local crews continue search for lost canoeist

MILFORD – Although the all-out search for a canoeist missing and presumed drowned in the Penobscot River has been called off, local Game Wardens and other rescue personnel continue to keep an eye out for Richard Jenkins of Milford.

Jenkins and Richard Holmes, 36, of Levant, were trying to go by canoe from one side of Indian Island to the other to build a bonfire around 3 a.m. Christmas Day when their craft overturned in the river, Lt. Pat Dorian of the Game Warden Service said Friday from his office in Augusta.

Dorian also is the search and rescue coordinator of the warden service.

As conditions have allowed, crews from the warden service and local rescue workers have continued to search for Jenkins. The water temperature is 33 degrees Fahrenheit and the current is very strong in the area where wardens believe the boat overturned near the dam, Dorian said.

“Wardens who live there locally are going to continue to look,” he said.

Workers at the nearby power station also have said they will turn off the turbines and rake the grates twice a day to look for Jenkins’ body.

It is possible he may not be found until spring.

“Most drowning victims go right down, and even in significant currents they’ll go down just like a rock,” Dorian said.