Quaqtaq man recounts harrowing blizzard rescue

Alec Oovaut took this photograph of his father Johnny Oovaut Nov. 19, as the pair became snowed into their shelter during a blizzard. The pair was rescued the following day, as hypothermia set in. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

A Quaqtaq man credits his life and the life of his son to a group of rescuers who came to their help in the midst of a raging snowstorm.

Johnny Oovaut, 51, and his son Alec, 27, were rescued from their snowed-in makeshift shelter early Nov. 20 after spending almost two days trapped inside, with hypothermia setting in.

Oovaut said he is eternally grateful to his rescuers: Jobie Aupaluk, Jusipi Kulula, Willie Kauki and Charlie Putayuk.

“This is the closest I got to passing away,” Oovaut wrote on his Facebook page on his return to Quaqtaq Nov. 20. “I felt angry that I would not see my family again, that my wife would have to go on alone in life and that we were going to die young.”

The father and son left Quaqtaq Nov. 15, each on separate snowmobiles, headed towards Tasiqjuakuluk (Roberts Lake) with plans to return home Nov. 18.

They awoke that morning to flurries, but decided to make the trip home.

It wasn’t long, though, before Alec Oovaut’s snowmobile hit a rock and broke down; his father towed that snowmobile until his own machine broke down when its ski hit another exposed rock.

With the flurries picking up, the Oovaut men unloaded the box from their sled and turned both the sled and box on their sides. They then put the snowmobile near the box and placed a tarp between the two.

“We got under the tarp, turned the stove on and waited and waited and waited,” Oovaut recounted. “The wind picked up, snow started accumulating on top of the tarp and we had to go out to clear the snow because it was weighing us down.”

That continued for the next 36 hours, as the two men struggled to keep the snow out of their tiny shelter through the darkness and 103-kilometre-an-hour winds.

In their isolated shelter, Oovaut said he played some music on his iPad for encouragement.

But as time went on, the men couldn’t keep up with the snow accumulating in the box, desperately trying to dig new holes to occupy.

“At this point, I lost hope, [there was] no place to go, nowhere to turn to,” Oovaut said. “I called my wife Louisa [with a satellite phone] to tell her that I love her and to take care of our 13-year-old daughter and that this was the last call I would be making due to the fact that it seemed we were going to die soon.”

Oovaut said the hardest part of the phone call was hearing his daughter screaming for him in the background.

Oovaut’s son Alec also called his own family and young son to say goodbye.

“My son (told me) ‘I love you dad!’ and I said ‘I love you son,’ like you love your son,’” Oovaut recounted. “It was a very, very sad moment and we cried.”

The two men sat in silence and cried for awhile, and then Alec encouraged him to keep trying to stay alive as long as possible.

“I thought of my ancestors who had survived with less tools than we have and this also encouraged me to fight for life,” Oovaut said. “We fought long and hard, for our families, for us. I said ‘we are too young to die.’”

Oovaut called his wife again to let her know they were still alive.

After that call, Oovaut’s brother-in-law had become restless in the blizzard and decided to pack up a search and rescue team to look for the two men.

The group of four, led by Oovaut’s brother-in-law Charlie Putayuk, found the father and son early Nov. 20, 11 hours after leaving Quaqtaq — a trip that would normally take two hours.

When the rescuers arrived, both Oovauts were suffering from uncontrollable muscle spasms as hypothermia set in.

The group took the pair to a nearby survival shack where they ate, drank and warmed themselves.

Upon the group’s return to Quaqtaq later that same day, Oovaut’s family was waiting for him just outside the community.

The experience has changed his life, said Oovaut, former mayor of Quaqtaq and chairman of the Nunavik Marine Regional Wildlife Board.

“I decided to appreciate the people around me and especially my family and wife,” he said.

Oovaut told Nunatsiaq News Nov. 21 that he is emotional and tired but otherwise fine.

He plans to return to the site of the shelter again soon to retrieve his equipment, “but believe me, I will bring a real shovel and a snow knife.”