Kayakers Find Mysterious Submerged Car In Ottawa River (Video)

At the bottom of Butcher’s Knife Rapids on the Ottawa River, a group of whitewater paddlers made an intriguing discovery.

“Some paddling friends sent me a message saying that they found something,” shared Joel Kowalski, Wilderness Tours River Manager. The group of paddlers reported that they had stumbled upon some sort of submerged structure beneath the surface of the water.

Mystery on the Ottawa River

“I got the chance to kayak down the river maybe a few days after that,” added Kowalski. “I could tell it was something big, something unnatural for the river.”

Later, more paddlers headed out to the site to determine what exactly was submerged in the Ottawa. Using an underwater camera, the paddlers confirmed they had found a vehicle beneath the surface of the river.

“The big mystery, of course, is how on earth does this thing get to where it settled in the bottom of Butcher’s Knife Rapid,” wondered Kowalski.

The mystery was later partially solved when authorities confirmed that the vehicle had been reported stolen in May 2024.

Kayakers and Local Businesses work together to remove stolen vehicle from the Ottawa River

On October 24-25 2025, Wilderness Tours along with Xtreme Towing and Gervais Towing set out on a mission to remove the stolen vehicle from the Ottawa River in a multi-day effort.

“We started early on the 24th,” explained Casey Bryant Jones, the lead on the project to remove the car from the river and Ottawa Kayak School Director.

“The Wilderness Tours Team worked with the things that we had on site here, using infinity loops that had a 35,000 pound capacity,” said Bryant Jones, adding that these infinity cables were much lighter and easier to work with than actual cable. “We moved those across the river and created a line from river left to river right.”

Using an array of the infinity loops, the team worked to move the vehicle upstream. Boulders and rocky terrain hindered progress. At one particularly large boulder, the team planned to flip the car upside down on top of the boulder, then guide it over.

Stolen car recovery faces complications

“The front end of the vehicle actually became lodged on the boulder, and an extreme amount of force was being put against the towing straps and they actually snapped,” explained Bryant Jones.

The team then had to reestablish a floating line across the river and, using paddler in a whitewater kayak, the crew moved a heavier gauge cable across the river. In a time consuming process using Xtreme Towing’s portable winch, the team was able to attach the vehicle to a new cable, and moved the vehicle over the top of the boulder.

As the night wore on and the team tired, they made the call to finish the mission in the morning. The morning of October 25, the team successfully moved the vehicle to a small inlet, then affixed buoys and pontoons to the vehicle. The Wilderness Tours team then hopped into the water.

“We gave them a hand getting this thing connected, and we over-engineered our strapping to make sure that the pontoons would not become new fixtures in the river,” said Bryant Jones. “For those of you who are paddlers and understand how the current works, if you have a neutrally buoyant item that is in the water and you’re pulling it upstream against the current, it will sink.”

The team worked to keep the vehicle close to shore to avoid losing it in the rapid or the vehicle pulling the team into the river, and eventually finished the job safely and removed the vehicle from the Ottawa River.