Nunavut air search called off after hunters return home

RCAF searchers looked for two overdue hunters around this area around the Sanigut Islands near Pangnirtung, after they received mistaken information about their location. The hunters were actually located near Kekerten Island, more than 50 kilometres away. The two brothers had caught a walrus and wanted to spend an extra day getting it ready to bring home — and they made it back to Pangnirtung by themselves.

The Royal Canadian Air Force called off a day-long air search for two overdue Pangnirtung hunters Nov. 24, after the men made it back home by themselves in the evening.

The two men, brothers in their late-30s, lost radio contact with the community after they caught a walrus in Kinngnait Fiord on Nov. 23, said Noah Mosesee, chairman of the Pangnirtung Hunters and Trappers Association.

“They caught a walrus and they couldn’t work on it right away,” so they decided to do the work the next day, Mosesee said.

After the men failed to return that afternoon as expected, their father and a fellow hunter reported they had sighted a similar 22-foot-long aluminum boat, but in the Sanigut Islands, in the opposite direction from Pangnirtung and more than 50 kilometres from where the men were actually located.

The father mistakenly believed the boat belonged to his sons.

“He saw a boat, and they weren’t going anywhere. He thought they were broken down,” Mosesee said.

A second boater checked the location, but didn’t find anything.

The community then called Nunavut Search and Rescue to report that the men were lost around the Sanigut Islands, some 30 kilometres northwest of Pangnirtung.

Nunavut Search and Rescue asked the Canadian Forces to search the area at 9:16 p.m., spokesperson Major Martell Thompson said.

The RCAF sent two airborne crews to conduct the search – one on a CC-130 Hercules aircraft from 413 squadron in Greenwood, N.S., and a Cormorant helicopter crew out of Gander, Nfld.

But the hunters were actually at a location in Kinngnait Fiord, southeast of Pangnirtung, Mosesee said, on an island northeast of the Kekerten Islands.

The area is some 50 kilometres by boat in the other direction.

“They were definitely in a different location,” Mosesee said. “Way, way different.”

The community learned of the men’s whereabouts after the two contacted the community of Qikiqtarjuak with their radio on Sunday.

“They couldn’t reach anybody in Pangnirtung, but they reached one guy in Qikiqtarjuak,” Mosesee said.

“He called to Pangnirtung that they were okay.”

Joint Task Force Atlantic called off the search at 7:15 p.m. on Nov. 24, after the men were found, Thompson said, and confirmed their arrival ashore in the community.