University of Calgary environmental science students Anna Gleig and Ava Haddad were enjoying a peaceful paddle down the Kananaskis River when they encountered something completely unexpected. A week-old floating baby horse was trapped against a concrete bridge, unable to escape the rushing water. The baby horse, weighing only 80 to 90 pounds, was pinned in place while his panicked mother paced helplessly on the shoreline, unable to reach him due to the deep water. Without hesitation, the two students knew they couldn’t leave the young animal in such a dangerous situation.
Working as a team, they managed to pull the cooperative horse across the river to safety, with Gleig drawing on her lifeguard training to handle the water rescue. When the adult horses scattered during the rescue and didn’t return after an hour and a half of waiting, the resourceful pair made an extraordinary decision. They put a life jacket on the horse and carefully placed him in their boat for a 20-minute downstream journey. The exhausted little horse even took a nap during the ride, completely trusting his human rescuers. Through quick thinking and community connections, they contacted someone from the nearby Mînî Thnî community who recognized the horses from photos and successfully reunited the horse with his mother. What started as a routine river trip became a life-saving mission that gave one young horse his second chance at life.