Two canoeists drowned while trying to cross the Salmon in a canoe with no life jackets. Our last river was to be the Salmon. On this trip we had 4 boaters, with one shuttle bunny. It was to be a schizophrenic trip. We ran a section on the Main Salmon from Carey Creek to Spring Bar. Big water, as usual on this part of the Salmon, but a beauty of a day on a beauty of a river. About halfway down, I saw something in the water that looked strange. So I rowed over and realized it was a body floating face down in the water. I blew my safety whistle and called the others back. The body was floating in a big eddy, so we corralled it and nerfed it to shore, where we pulled it up partially on some rocks. The riverbank was 20 feet straight up, so we could not move the body or even get up the bank to a gravel road that ran up above us. So two of our group floated downstream to where they could get up the bank to the road to look for help. The short version is that we eventually made contact with the local Sheriff in Riggins, Idaho, who then sent a motorboat on a trailer to Spring Bar which then went back upstream for the body. Turns out the guy was one of two canoeists who tried to cross the Salmon without lifejackets. They made it across to visit a hot springs on river right, but when they tried to get back they flipped over and both drowned. This guy was wearing blue jeans, heavy boots and a T-shirt. The police and emergency crews had been searching for the body for two weeks. The other canoeist had been found four days earlier. We all know better than boating without a life jacket, but it is still the harshest reminder of all to find someone who has died because of it. Never leave shore without one.