Nunavut searchers find Arviat men missing for three days

Two Arviat men who went missing three days ago while travelling the route between Arviat and Whale Cove are now back at home, after an RCAF Hercules crew spotted them and land searchers picked them up. (FILE PHOTO)

A search for Harry Kuksuk and Johnny Kaviok, lost between Arviat and Whale Cove, concluded Feb. 5 on the second day of the search, thanks to help from an RCAF Hercules aircraft.

Sgt. Yvonne Niego of the Nunavut RCMP confirmed Feb. 5 that the Hercules spotted the pair north of Arviat on the route to Whale Cove at about 1:30 p.m. local time.

“Both are confirmed found and OK,” Niego told Nunatsiaq News in an email that evening.

Arviat’s RCMP detachment, which was coordinating the search, sent a ground-based crew to the area where the Canadian Forces plane spotted the two men.

“They were spotted by the Herc there this afternoon,” Const. Harris MacLean of the detachment told Nunatsiaq News from Arviat just before 5:00 p.m., local time.

“Actually our ground search just arrived with them, and they’re going to be coming back shortly,” he said.

Kuksuk and Kaviok left their home community in the evening of Feb. 2, by snowmobile, on the route to Whale Cove, Niego said.

The hamlet’s RCMP detachment first received a call at about 11:00 a.m., Feb. 3, alerting police that the two men were overdue in arriving at their destination.

The Arviat RCMP detachment dispatched a land-search crew on three snowmobiles from the community at about 1:00 p.m. Feb. 4, , Niego said.

Nunavut Search and Rescue asked the Canadian Forces for help that evening.

CFB Trenton sent a Hercules aircraft to the region, which arrived at dawn on Feb. 5, Niego told Nunatsiaq News.

“They were expected to get there this morning at first light,” she said.

The two men were travelling on a single snowmobile, and equipped with hunting gear, Niego said. They had a satellite phone, but were not carrying a SPOT emergency locator device.

Weather conditions in Arviat were sunny and clear Feb. 5, and temperatures stood at about -28 C at the end of the afternoon, according to Environment Canada.