Mayor Cam Guthrie

July 26, 2020. A beach near Collingwood, Ontario. Sixteen-year-old Jamey Ruth Klassen was supposed to be enjoying a quiet family vacation beside the icy blue waters of Georgian Bay. Farther out on the lake, a man named Christopher Robertson had taken his kayak out alone for a peaceful paddle. Then the kayak filled with water and flipped. Suddenly, he was stranded in the freezing bay, clinging desperately to the overturned hull while shouting for help. Jamey didn’t hear him directly. What she heard instead were strangers nearby calling 911, panicking about a kayaker who had disappeared beneath the surface and wasn’t coming back up. Most teenagers would’ve stayed on shore. The water was brutally cold. The distance looked impossible. Lifeguards and paramedics were already being called. Waiting would’ve been understandable. Jamey never waited. She ran toward the water and dove in. Alone, she swam nearly 600 feet through Georgian Bay — the distance of two football fields — pushing herself farther and farther from shore toward the empty kayak floating in the distance. By the time she reached it, Christopher Robertson was gone. Then Jamey looked down. Through the clear Canadian water, she could see him lying motionless twelve feet below on the lake floor. She took one breath. And dove. The cold tightened around her body instantly as she reached the bottom. She grabbed Robertson beneath both arms and forced herself upward, dragging his unconscious body back toward the surface. He wasn’t breathing. His body hung limp in the water. Jamey refused to let go. She turned him onto his back, balanced his head against her shoulder, wrapped one arm across his chest, and began swimming him toward shore using only one arm and her legs. Every second became harder. Her muscles burned violently. Her lungs screamed. She had no formal lifeguard certification because the pandemic had canceled the courses she planned to take that summer. Still, she kept kicking. Then fear hit her. Jamey realized she might drown beside him before reaching shore. Exhausted and losing strength, she used the last thing she still had left: Her voice. She screamed for help. A nearby paddleboarder heard her cries and rushed across the water. Together, they lifted Robertson onto the board while Jamey, shivering and exhausted, swam the remaining distance alone. Onshore, police officers and paramedics immediately began CPR. Moments later, Christopher Robertson started breathing again. He survived. Nearly a year later, Jamey Ruth Klassen received the Carnegie Medal — North America’s highest civilian honor for heroism. Out of millions of people, only eighteen recipients were chosen that year. But Jamey barely spoke about herself afterward. Instead, she used the scholarship money from the award to attend nursing school at McMaster University, quietly continuing the same instinct that had driven her into the freezing water that day: If someone needs help, you go. No hesitation. No spotlight. No waiting for someone braver. Just a sixteen-year-old girl who saw a stranger drowning… and decided his life mattered more than her fear.