Last Sunday evening along the Yukon River, a Whitehorse woman lost her life while another woman's life was changed irrevocably.

Stacy (not her real name) was one of many people out enjoying the good weather when 23-year-old Paula Riehl, out on the water with her boyfriend and several male friends, fell off her inner tube in a powerful, swirling eddy just above the city intake and drowned.

None of the young adults were wearing life-jackets.

Just hours earlier on Sunday evening, a white water kayaker fished a scared young man out of the same area, and Wednesday evening two young girls narrowly escaped the spot after two men on the riverbank dove in and rescued them.

Stacy and a man she never got his name provided CPR to the young woman until police and paramedics arrived, but were unable to revive her.

Every moment of that time will stay with her forever, Stacy told the Star earlier this week as she walked back along the riverbank where her years of first aid training kicked in Sunday evening.

Clearly still badly shaken by the tragedy, Stacy didn't want personal recognition, though she noted three young men who dove in and repeatedly tried to save Riehl did so at great risk to their own lives.

What matters, she said, is that people learn something.

'That poor wee angel, she was only 23 years old, and I don't want her to have died in vain here,' the woman said, calling the event life-changing for her. 'I want her death to have some kind of an impact.'

While she did CPR, the woman recalls looking up at her son's girlfriend, who was sobbing and saying 'Can't you do something?'

The young men who pulled the young woman to shore were also clearly traumatized, said the woman.

She hopes the drowning in the middle of town shocks young people into thinking twice about tubing down the river or jumping off the Robert Campbell Bridge, though she worries that won't happen.

'It happened so quickly,' she said, noting she hopes people realize now just how quickly and easily being on the water can turn fatal. 'Her poor family is never going to be the same again.'

'She died for a reason. I have to believe that.'

She suggested Northwestel put in a phone at the river park for 911 callers, for white water rescue to be taught in schools and for pictures and information to be posted along the river, showing how the river currents work and what they can do to swimmers.

'It's just so important to me that this just doesn't all go in the dust someplace,' said the woman as we walked by the intake.

Nearby, a mother watched her two children jump off the rocks that create the chutes at the intake, just a couple of metres away from the powerful eddy in question.

When it's hot out, it's simply not possible to keep people out of the river that runs through town, said Bob Daffe, owner of a 23-year-old rafting company, Tatshenshini Expediting, and resident granddaddy of white water paddling in the Yukon.

Some have a 'it's not going to happen to me' attitude, but beyond that, not using the river isn't the answer either, he said.

'We're promoting active living all over the place,' said Daffe. 'Active living means going swimming and means enjoying the river. Just like you teach your kids to cross the street safely, you should teach them how to handle the water safely.

'That river is part of our history, it's part of our culture. We drink it every day. We use it every day as hydro power.'

Daffe said he believes all Yukon kids should learn water safety in physical education classes by spending at least a day on the river, learning how it works and where's it can be dangerous.

'It's part of our life,' Daffe said of the Yukon River. 'To me the answer is education. The accident that happened is just a slap in the face. To me it says loud and clear we haven't educated the people.'

Both through his own business teaching rookie paddlers the ropes and through Yukon Canoe and Kayak Club events, Daffe said he's seen many people jump into that stretch of the river without a life-jacket.

The problem is, he said, people on the riverbanks see just how much fun the kayakers are having and want to dive in, too.

While the club has several programs that provide all the gear and education for kids who pay the nominal membership fee, they don't catch the many more youth who aren't in the club.

Rivers are deceptive creatures they simply don't flow uniformly downstream.

While the paddling association sets up its white water slalom course just below the dam and weir, those contraptions are known as 'drowning machines' as swimmers get sucked into the backwash.

Below that, the slalom course area can sport three- to six-foot waves.

'We swim there with people all the time,' Daffe said.

Near the Yukon Energy powerhouse, large boils can flip kayakers. From there to the intake area the white water park the river widens. A wave on the right side is a popular spot for kayakers to surf.

Strange currents start again at the city intake. Years ago, cement was dumped into the river, and obstructions always create eddies downstream, and sometimes above as well.

It was the upstream eddy, or whirlpool of sorts, where swimmers have been encountering danger.

It's always been a powerful eddy, said Daffe, but with part of the riverbank eroding away last winter, it's become more so.

The lines between the downstream current and the upstream eddy current create the turbulence, and they move. The eddy essentially creates swirling whirlpools that act as a drain and suck people under water, said Daffe.

'Anywhere (on the river), it's a bad place to be without a life-jacket.'

Daffe, an instructor for white water rescue, raft guiding, canoeing and kayaking, lives by the 'rule of three' he always paddles in groups of three or more.

His company is just one of several in town that offer training to boaters of various skill levels.

Out of professional interest, he scours the American Whitewater Association's annual review of paddling deaths, looking for patterns.

Most people drown under supervised swimming, he said, and mixing boating, water and alcohol is squarely to blame for that.

The No. 2 killer is the lack of a life-jacket. The third is when a person gets into trouble while paddling alone or gets separated from a group.

While the City of Whitehorse doesn't have any jurisdiction on the river, city crews have put up short cement barriers between the Millennium Trail that runs along the river near the intake and a short path that ends on the eroded riverbank.

His own son at the age of four once almost rode his bike into a creek, said Dennis Shewfelt, the city's director of operations. It was with that type of incident in mind the barriers were erected to keep out very young children.

Also, the city is putting up signs to warn of the strong undertow and eroding banks and taking out radio ads.

'We don't have a right to keep people out of the river,' said Shewfelt.

But, he said, the city is hoping to get people to stop and think first about what they're doing.

'All we're saying is use common sense and go on the water ... in a sensible manner. And certainly if you're going into that current, wearing a life-jacket is a sensible step.

'Pause and think about what you're doing, and if you're taking young children down there, watch them, put a life-jacket on them. You don't want to lose one,' said Shewfelt. 'As parents, we have to make sure we know where our kids are and what they're doing is safe.'

Every year, the Canadian Red Cross runs a summer safe boating campaign, but this year they've decided to name this Saturday as National Lifejacket Day.

Some 400 Canadians drown each year, half of those while boating, according to Red Cross numbers.

Of those who drown while boating, 90 per cent weren't wearing life-jackets. Young men between 15 and 35 are the most common drowning victims.

The main message they want to get across to people out on the water is to wear a life-jacket, and wear it properly, said Carey Gray of the local Red Cross.

'It's not going to help if it's in the boat or on shore,' Gray said.

The Red Cross, the Recreation and Parks Association of the Yukon and the paddling club are holding a water safety demonstration at the intake in Riverdale at 7 p.m. Monday.