Jeppe Lyngaa Aaquist hadn’t been training specifically to save someone from Kathleen Lake, but he’d done the next best thing: trained to join Greenland’s Serius Patrol, an elite naval unit.

“The test (for acceptance) is about rescuing people out of the water,” Lyngaa Aaquist said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

His preparation came in handy last Saturday afternoon, when Lyngaa Aaquist, a Danish tourist, saw Yukon resident Donald Francis and Quebec’s Frank Glass tip their canoe in the middle of glacier-fed Kathleen Lake in Kluane National Park.

Lyngaa Aaquist, 23, was staying at a lodge near the park. A soldier with the Danish army, he had taken five months off to visit Canada on a working visa.

He travelled up to the Yukon from Edmonton because he wanted to spend some time hiking.

He was fishing Kathleen Lake with two friends Saturday when they saw Glass and Francis, along with Francis’s dog, Kody, tip their canoe 30 to 40 metres from shore.

The wind had picked up, causing waves to hit the canoe broadside.

Glass and Francis spent roughly 10 minutes in the water, which, according to Parks Canada, has an average June temperature of six degrees Celsius.

“We knew we had to get out there as fast as possible and drag them into the shore,” Lyngaa Aaquist told the Star.

“I have never rescued someone out of the water before, but, you know, I go swimming in the winter in Denmark so I know how much I can take,” he said.

He has made holes in the ice and jumped through as training for cold water rescue, he added.

“I knew that I could go out there and drag them in.”

Lyngaa Aaquist stripped off his clothing and swam the 30 metres out to where the two men were struggling to keep the panicked Kody in the canoe.

He said he could tell as he approached that they were in rough shape.

They weren’t very alert, they were clearly exhausted, and Glass was having trouble speaking coherently.

Lyngaa Aaquist told them to focus on hanging onto the canoe, and he dragged them into shore.

There, he dressed them both in dry clothing and tried to warm them up.

He then walked them roughly one kilometre to a nearby Parks Canada cabin, where an ambulance was called.

He said Glass came close to fainting once, so he tried to carry him as much as possible.

“I was worried about him because he was saying all the time that he was OK and I knew that he was not OK.”

An ambulance transported Glass and Francis to the Haines Junction Health Centre, where they were treated and released.

Lyngaa Aaquist said he has since spoken with Francis, who thanked him, but hasn’t had a chance to talk to Glass since the rescue.

Though Glass has returned to Quebec, Lyngaa Aaquist says he hopes to be able to check in with him.

Lyngaa Aaquist will fly back to Denmark from Canada at the end of August. Once home, he will apply for his testing for Serius Patrol.