ST. PETER — Nicollet County Sheriff’s deputies have recovered a body from the Minnesota River and believe it’s a South Dakota kayaker missing since June.

A fisherman found the body in a log jam on the Minnesota River at 11:30 a.m. Saturday.

Steven Fritze’s kayak overturned June 22 in a fast-moving, rising river after becoming entangled in bushes. Two friends made it to shore but Fritze did not. He was visiting family in New Ulm at the time.

A coalition of 50 personnel from emergency response and law enforcement agencies worked together, scouring the river for weeks in boats and on shore with cadaver dogs.

A memorial service for Fritze, a sixth-grade teacher at St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Watertown, S.D., was held on July 3.

According to the sheriff’s department release, a positive identification is pending results of an autopsy by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner.