A Saskatoon father and son and an aspiring Montreal football player are dead after an accident on a North Dakota highway on the weekend.

Emmanuel Stiverne graduated from Graceland University the day before the truck accident. (Graceland University)The accident happened early Monday morning on U.S. Highway 52, about six kilometres east of the town of Bergen, N.D.

The group's pickup truck – driven by a 16-year-old – left the road and hit a ravine in McHenry County, U.S. highway patrollers reported.

Two of the victims are from Saskatoon: Dale Loucks, 48, was returning from Iowa where he had picked up his 18-year-old son, Benjamin, from his first year at Graceland University (GU).

The third victim, 25-year old Emmanuel Stiverne, was a wide receiver for the Graceland football team and originally from Montreal.

Stiverne had graduated from the university less than 24 hours before the accident and was heading to Saskatoon to intern at Loucks's finance company.

Loucks's younger son, Michael, 16, was driving the pickup truck when it crashed and is in critical condition.

Stiverne's extended family in Montreal is in shock and struggling to come to grips with the news of his death, his older sister, Martine, told CBC News.

"He was a really determined young man," she said Tuesday.

Ben Loucks, of Saskatoon, was killed in the accident along with his father. (Graceland University)"He decided when he was 20 he wanted to play football, [and] his goal was to play football with a professional team," she said.

Stiverne also wanted to finish school and was pleased to have graduated with an internship lined up, Martine said.

"And when he was almost reaching his goal, that's when his life was ripped away," she said.

Stiverne was very family-oriented, and made an effort to spend time with members of his extended clan, his sister said.

"He's really going to be missed."

The Graceland community is "deeply saddened" by the loss of both young men, staff at the Midwestern college said.

Stiverne was a "great young man," said Pat Hoffman, GU's co-ordinator of academic advising, in a written statement. "He was a mature person, set to do great things in with his life."

Ben Loucks, who just finished his freshman year, was "a big teddy bear," said Diana Jones, director of international programs at GU. "You wanted to hug him whenever you saw him."

With files from the Associated Press