MILFORD – Divers have suspended the search for a canoeist missing and feared drowned in the Penobscot River after his craft overturned during a pre-dawn crossing from Indian Island to Milford on the day before Christmas.

The missing man, identified by wardens as Richard Jenkins of Milford, was one of two people in the canoe that capsized around 3 a.m. Sunday.

The other canoeist, Richard Holmes, 36, of Levant, made it to shore and called for help. Holmes was treated for hypothermia at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

The canoe was found near the grates of a dam, but the search turned up no sign of the missing man.

Divers were in the water for nearly four hours before calling it quits.

“The current is so bad because we’re real close to the dam and we put our guys in a difficult situation,” said Lt. Pat Dorian of the Maine Warden Service.

No diving was planned for Christmas Day, but officials planned to confer with dive team members to decide when to resume the search.

“We’ll dive where we feel it’s safe to dive. It is entirely possible that he got swept down, carried down somewhere closer to the dam, and that being the case, we may have to wait for things to happen naturally for him to come up,” Dorian said.