Lost, and found, on the tundra
Nunavut MLA, relatives rescued after going missing for more than a week
When Pauloosie Keyootak rose in the Nunavut legislature a few weeks ago to send birthday wishes to his daughter, Nena, back home, he recalled having helped deliver her when his wife, Alice, went into labour.
Keyootak, 62, a father of four, hunter, fisher, outdoorsman and member of the territorial legislature for one of Canada’s most remote political constituencies, is a man not easily rattled by life challenges.
Even so, getting lost in Canada’s Arctic on a 500-km snowmobile trip home from Iqaluit with his 16-year-old son and adult nephew was crisis enough for even the most capable of men.
And Keyootak didn’t mind admitting Friday that as supplies dwindled after eight days stranded on the tundra, the sight of the Twin Otter arriving Thursday night had him crying for joy and “jumping happy.”
“That’s how we survived — the meat from the caribou.” PAULO OSIE KEYOOTAK
Keyootak, son Atamie and nephew Peter Kakkik had set out from Iqaluit on March 22 with two snowmobiles and a qamutik sled carrying fuel and other supplies. They intended to cover 300 kilometres to Pangnirtung overnight, before continuing up the Baffin Island coast a further 175 kilometres to Qikiqtarjuaq.
Depending on how hard one rides, the trip can usually be made in about 11 to 15 hours. The trail is dotted with shelter cabins along the way. But this time, when a snowstorm blew in, the travellers got disoriented on the jagged coastline and rugged terrain and lost the trail, turning south down the Frobisher Bay shore instead of heading northeast.
By the time they realized the error, they didn’t have sufficient gas to retrace their tracks. Their best bet was to dig in and wait for help.
So Keyootak built an igloo with a small knife. Atamie and Kakkik shot a caribou. “That’s how we survived — the meat from the caribou,” the MLA told reporters Friday. The men had a camp stove, some fuel, tea and sugar, a sleeping bag and mat. During the day, when the sun was up, they stayed outdoors and moved around. At nightfall, they’d go to bed right away.
When the party didn’t arrive in Pangnirtung on March 23, they had been reported missing. And in the capital, seasoned search-and-rescue leader Ed Zebedee soon kicked the emergency response into gear.
Even as days passed, Zebedee was confident they’d find the men. These were experienced outdoorsmen. “We knew if we found them we were pretty sure they’d be alive. It was just finding them.
During such searches, leaders take advice from elders who know the terrain, he said. “You come into our search headquarters and there’s five or six old guys sitting around drinking tea or playing crib or eating bannock. They know everything there is to know about the land.”
From the air, up where there are no trees and nothing to burn, everything looks white like snow or black like rock, he said. But the rescue crews kept working their grids. Eventually, they spotted snowmobile tracks leading to a makeshift camp.
Once Zebedee knew the three men were OK, “I’ll tell you there was a lot of noise in search headquarters.”
Keyootak’s wife was phoned and told they were found, alive and being flown out. She told her daughter. Within eight minutes, news was out on social media.