The body of a 15-year-old boy was pulled from the waters of an Ontario lake

Friday night.

Police said the boy was visiting a cottage on Baxter Lake, in Georgian Bay,

about 150 km north of Toronto.

He was swimming with friends when he ran into difficulty around 4:00 p.m.

and disappeared beneath the surface, police said.

It is believed he drowned.

Police said they recovered his body around 9:00 p.m., when the coroner

pronounced him dead.

The name of the boy has not been released. Police would only identify him as

being from Ancaster, Ont.

The number of children who have died in Ont. waterways this month has

alarmed the province's chief coroner and other officials.

"Many people just don't realize that you really do need to learn to swim. I

don't think the priority is as high as it should be," said Barbara Byers of

the Ontario Lifesaving Society. "Our most recent survey that we have says

that 46% of kids have ever taken lessons."

According to the society, drowning is the number one cause of accidental

death among kids in Canada between ages one and four and the second leading

cause of preventable death for kids under 10 year old.

Two boys - one six, one just 21 months old - drowned within a little more

than 24 hours, July 22 and 23, in the waters around Manitoulin Island.

Police said both drownings occurred during family functions. A traditional

native funeral was held last Friday for Waaweyeseh Bell, 6, of the

Wikwemikong First Nation.

A nine-year-old boy died July 18 after his body was pulled from Georgian

Bay.

On July 14, police recovered the body of a 12-year-old Toronto boy, whose

name has not been released, from the waters of a beach in Port Colborne.

A day earlier David Harder, 7, and his sister Lisa Harder, 10, drowned at a

Lake Erie beach in Port Burwell.