The search and recovery efforts are continuing again today for presumed drowning victim, 16-year-old Blessing Paul.

The teen, from Calgary, was with friends at Seebe Dam over the weekend when he went under the water while trying to cross the river.

He did not resurface.

Seebe Dam is approximately 35 minutes southwest of Cochrane. 

RCMP Cpl. Troy Savinkoff has been at the scene for the last couple of days and says they had to make the difficult switch from a rescue to a recovery mission.

"We went from a rescue tour to a recovery operation a couple of days ago. So far to this point we've had helicopters make multiple passes, we've had four boat searches in the water, including a dive team and thus far have been unsuccessful."

Savinkoff says they've also done two ground searches so far. 

"One done exclusively with Cochrane Search and Rescue and the other one done with 40 volunteers from the family, out yesterday and they were assisted by 10 Cochrane Search and Rescue volunteers and they were searching the areas adjacent to the waterway."

Savinkoff says unfortunately they've had to scale back the recovery mission a bit. 

"We will be doing periodic boat patrols every few days as well as everyday having eyes on the water in that area. We have another dive team scheduled right now on Monday, next week, however, we're trying to move that up if we can."

Savinkoff says it's difficult once you determine that it's very unlikely the victim has survived. 

"When you do that transition from a rescue to a recovery now, you're convinced that you're looking for somebody who unfortunately, has passed away and you're looking to recover them, and in this case, bring this boy back home to his mom."

It's a vast search area with thick bush and rough terrain. 

"This location is between the Seebe Dam and the Horseshoe Dam, so our main search area is a 1.1 KM stretch of the water and the shoreline as it goes towards that dam."

Savinkoff says this is such a popular spot for people to go to, but it's illegal to get there. 

"In this particular case, Blessing Paul is just a teenager who was trying to have a nice day in the sun with his friends. I don't think there was any ill intent on his part or his friends part. But, the one thing that we really want to emphasize is this area gives us a lot of difficulties, every year."

He says "It's private property. The area itself is Trans Alta property and they're in close relationship with the Stoney Nakota First Nation who also owns property there. Often when people are getting to the location there, they're trespassing across CP Rail lines. People that are accessing this land are actually trespassing across three different types of private property."

Savinkoff says they're always working on ways to better enforce the area, including ticketing and towing those who trespass. 

"We have difficulties enforcing it because of the magnitude. We're talking about, not a few trespassers, we're talking about between 50 and 100 trespassers a day, that are coming out here."

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