Finally-closure for the family...

[Woody]

Boater's body found
Blaine man had been missing on Mille Lacs Lake
By MATT ERICKSON-Brainerd Daily Dispatch
Staff Writer
The body of a boater missing for more than a week on Mille Lacs Lake has been recovered.

The body of Christopher Lee Shanahan, 46, Blaine, who had been presumed to have drowned, was found shortly after noon Wednesday on the south shore of Wigwam Bay on the east side of the lake, the Aitkin County Sheriff's Department reported. Shanahan was found and positively identified by a close friend who had been searching along the shore.

"As tragic as it is, it's nice to achieve some measure of closure for the family," Aitkin County Sheriff Scott Turner said.

Shanahan was last seen Sept. 23 leaving Terry's Boat Harbor on the west side of Mille Lacs Lake south of Garrison. On Sept. 25, his boat was found anchored in about 30 feet of water about three miles from shore near the Aitkin County and Mille Lacs County line.

Shanahan had been fishing alone in a 1989 27-foot Bayliner fiberglass cabin cruiser. He was reported missing after he failed to return to Terry's Boat Harbor, where he had a boat slip.

Authorities from the Aitkin, Mille Lacs, Itasca and Crow Wing county sheriff's department and the State Patrol, Civil Air Patrol and DNR conducted surface and air searches of the 132,000-acre lake but were often hampered by adverse weather conditions.

Turner said this is the first drowning his county had investigated on Mille Lacs Lake in 2006.

The Mille Lacs County Sheriff's Department recovered Shanahan's body, and it was transported to the Mille Lacs County medical Examiner's officer for autopsy.