Nunavut teen stalked by polar bear on ice floe
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A teenage boy who was stranded on a floating ice sheet in Nunavut had to shoot a menacing polar bear in order to stay alive, says a spokesman with the Nunavut government.
"There was a large adult bear that was shot that was on the same ice floe as him," said Ed Zebedee, director of protection services for Nunavut. "There were others on the floe with him. It would have been a defensive kill. I don't know what would have been scarier — drifting in the dark with no gear, or coming across a bear."
The 17-year-old boy, who hasn't been identified, and his uncle were found safe after they went missing last week while on a hunting trip.
"Polar bears are the only animal that will definitely stalk a human and eat them," said Zebedee. "Nobody goes out on the land here without a gun."
A Hercules aircraft from Canadian Forces Base Greenwood, N.S., was dispatched Sunday after the two were reported missing in the freezing Nunavut wilderness.
They left for a trip to Coral Harbour, Nunavut, on Thursday, but they were only supposed to go for two days, according military officials at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont.
The uncle was found Sunday a kilometre from his snowmobile wandering the shores of Southampton Island at the mouth of Hudson Bay, but the search for his nephew had to be abandoned after darkness fell.
Search crews located the boy at first light Monday, trapped on an ice sheet the size of a small house that may have broken away as the boy walked to get help, said Lt. Annie Morin, a spokeswoman for CFB Trenton.
Two search-and-rescue technicians parachuted from a C-130 aircraft to a larger ice floe nearby. They swam to where the boy was and waited for a boat to arrive.
The boy had some frostbite and was dehydrated when he was rescued, Zebedee said, but he was conscious and alert.
He was treated briefly in Coral Harbour before being transferred to a hospital in Churchill, Man.
Coral Harbour is a community of about 750 on the southern shore of Southampton Island, which sits in the northern end of Hudson Bay.
With files from Agence France-Presse
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