Brad Hall is extremely grateful for the hundreds of volunteer search and rescue officials who spent Canada Day weekend searching the woods of Kejimikujik National Park for him and his daughter after they became lost while on a canoe trip.

“These people just dropped everything for me because I needed help. It’s very humbling,” Hall tells CTV Atlantic.

Hall and his nine-year-old daughter talked about doing a canoe trip for a few weeks before embarking on one.

He says they knew it would be challenging and set out last Friday for the journey at Nova Scotia’s Kejimikujik National Park. He says they both have experience canoeing and felt comfortable with the trip.

The first night, Hall and his daughter listened to the sounds of beavers and loons while they camped.

When they took off on Saturday, the pair started canoeing, going through two sets of rapids.

Hall says he had a map of the route, but misidentified a couple points, including the rapids they went over. Their canoe got caught on a rock and turned sideways before being pushed against a rock.

Hall says he realized the danger of the situation and the pair hopped out of the canoe and went to the shore.

They both had helmets and life-jackets and Hall says he wasn’t too concerned at that point.

Afterwards, Hall realized he couldn’t move the canoe alone, so, he got rope from the canoe and the pair set up a camp on the shore.

Hall lost part of the guidebook he had with him, but he knew there was a logging road through the woods. He also saw several cabins on the way down, so both he and his daughter decided to start walking to find the cabins.

Hall says they both travelled between four and five kilometers through the swampy woods – while dealing with terrible mosquitoes – in the hopes of finding a cabin.

However, a cabin was nowhere to be found.

“It was hell,” Hall says. “There’s no other word.”

The pair decided to find their way back through the woods another four to five kilometers to their campsite for the night.

On Sunday, Hall decided to continue looking for a cabin, thinking he could take a canoe from the property, but his daughter didn’t think she could continue walking.

“I really didn’t want to leave her out there,” he said.

However, Hall says he thought going to look for a cabin was the most reasonable thing to do, so he started off by walking along the lake, then deciding to swim across it, looking for a cabin.

Hall thought he was swimming across a bay, later realizing he swam across Eleven Mile Lake, ending up somewhere he didn’t recognize.

That’s when he says it hit him that he was lost and his daughter was out there on her own.

“It was a bit frightening,” said Hall. “I’m supposed to be the one looking after this child and I didn’t do my job. It was devastating at that point.”

But Hall says he never lost hope, believing that help would come.

The pair was separated Sunday. He says his daughter spent both Sunday night and Monday night alone before being rescued by search crews Tuesday afternoon.

“This child’s amazing,” Hall says of his daughter. “My wife and I are blown away by her.”

Once located by authorities, Hall says his daughter was able to help them by providing valuable information, like what had happened and what he was wearing.

Hall was later located on Wednesday, after he made his way to a cabin and broke inside the building.

Both Hall and his daughter were unharmed. He says he is grateful for everyone who helped him and his family.

“I don’t know how to thank those guys,” he said.