Taloyoak man presumed dead

Robert Marqniq of Taloyoak is missing and presumed to have drowned after the snowmobile he was driving disappeared through an ice crack on June 6.

The 41-year-old was returning to the Windy Lake mining camp 136 kilometres southwest of Cambridge Bay when he and his machine fell through a two-metre-wide hole in the sea ice. The crack was hidden by a pressure ride, police say.

Marqniq and a friend were returning to Windy Lake after a day of ice fishing.

Cambridge Bay RCMP and the Nunavut Emergency Measures Organization were called to the scene, about 100 kilometres from town. The missing man and his snowmobile were never recovered, said Sgt. Greg Peck.

“It’s an area with a very strong current,” Peck said. “There were no signs of life.”