Hunters help their own on Frobisher Bay

SARA MINOGUE

First he spent twelve hours on an ice pan that had broken away from the sea ice on Frobisher Bay. Then Christopher Giroux climbed into a home-made 16-foot boat along with his skidoo, his kamotik and four large men for a two-hour journey through shifting ice, with water just four inches from the boat’s edge.

“No unnecessary moves,” said Andrew Cox, the boat owner, describing the trip.

Giroux was cooking seal meat with his hunting companion, Jutanie Davidee, late last Saturday night near Frobisher’s Farthest islands about 40 kilometres southeast of Iqaluit, when they noticed that the islands next to them were drifting away. A large piece of ice, which Cox estimates at 300 yards by 500 yards, had broken off and was drifting.

Davidee took a kayak the pair had with them and headed for land. He walked for five hours overland and managed to find the small island where Matt Knickelbein and Romeyn Stevenson both have cabins. Davidee woke everybody up and called for help using Stevenson’s HF radio around 7:30 a.m.

Cox had just abandoned plans to stop at his own cabin, some 10 miles further down the bay from Knickelbein’s, because of bad ice. Instead he was heading around some bad ice to another hunting spot when he saw a skidoo coming towards him.

It was Johnny Kolola, who had heard the call for help from across the bay where he was out with Mathew Akavak. The pair headed towards the scene immediately, grabbing Cox and his boat along the way.

Back at the scene, Kolola and Knickelbein managed to spot Giroux by boat. They climbed to an island to get a view of the ice and plan the best route to reach him.

“Then we kicked and pushed and pulled on the ice for an hour,” Cox said.

Finally, the boaters met Giroux, who snowmobiled to the edge of the ice to climb into the boat. By this time, the ice he was on was breaking off in the current.

Cox said he wouldn’t have tried the shaky boat ride in anything but perfectly calm weather, which nature luckily provided, but said that Giroux was happy to salvage his skidoo.

A search and rescue helicopter joined the rescuers half-way through the final boat ride.

The lesson from the adventure, Cox said, is always have a satellite phone.

“I saved myself this winter with a satellite phone, my lovely satellite phone,” Cox said, referring to his own overnight adventure on an ice floe in January.