Could it be the deer knew exactly what it had to do to be rescued?

Conservation officer Kris Gustafson doesn't know.

"But he swam right up to the only place he could be rescued from,” Gustafson said this morning of Thursday evening's two-hour rescue of a mule buck from beneath the Takhini River Bridge on the North Klondike Highway. "It was a little weird.”

Environment Yukon began receiving calls Thursday afternoon through the TIP line and on cell phones about a mule deer that was trapped in a slushy section of the river between the bridge and the Yukon River.

When conservation officer Larry Bill arrived shortly after 4 p.m., the large buck was totally submerged but for his head, swimming in the slush about 60 to 90 metres downriver from the bridge, unable to climb out because of the thin ice, Gustafson told the Star.

Bill could do little as it was not safe to try and reach the animal, with the tenuous ice conditions.

Gustafson said when he arrived at about 4:30, the deer was still quite a way downriver. However, as they stood on the bridge watching, with the emergency lights flashing on their trucks parked at each end of the bridge, the buck began swimming toward them through the slush.

It stopped right below where Gustafson was standing on the bridge, and stayed there.

"If he'd gone five feet either way, I would not have been able to get him.”

With traffic driving by, Gustafson hung over the edge of the railing with a long rope to try to lasso the animal.

"Finally I was able to get one antler and his chin,” he recalled.

With Melanie Organ, a colleague from his office who'd stopped to help, hanging onto to him, Gustafson wove the rope around the steel girders until they reached the the end of the bridge.

From the bridge deck, Gustafson, Bill and Organ dragged the deer onto solid ice, where it stood up and began walking slowly towards shore.

The conservation officer kept tying on additional lengths of rope to give the animal enough slack to reach the shore and move around, and then they tied it off to the bridge, so that they could make their way down to try and free the buck.

While the deer recovered slowly when it was first pulled to safety, it quickly regained its strength, and its attitude, he said.

"Once he was on the ground again, he was full of fight.”

Gustafson said when dealing with a large, healthy mule buck that has plenty of kicking power, and a full set of sharp antlers, one must be cautious.

With the assistance of two others who stopped to help, Bernie Foster and Katie Swales, Gustafson rigged a rope around a pole. He was finally able to lasso the deer's hind legs, so that they could pull him down and place a blanket over his head to help calm him.

Conservation officer Ken Knutson showed up to assist, and the crew was finally able to free the buck from the ropes.

"And then he jumped up and right back into the river.”

Gustafson said the skittish buck went downriver about 15 metres or so in chest-high water, but was still standing and not swimming. A short while later, it climbed back on solid ice and was gone.

The whole ordeal, from the time the deer was roped to the time he was freed, lasted about two hours, Gustafson estimated.