Elder found after a month
An 81-year-old elder and hunter from Igloolik was found alive Thursday, after four weeks of air and ground searches.
Searchers aboard a Twin Otter airplane spotted Enoki Kunuk near a vast fjord Thursday night.
"We found his kamotiq and snowmobile first, and then we found him beside his tent," Kunuk's son, Mathusalah Kunuk, told CBC News late Thursday.
Kunuk said his father waved up at the plane, looking healthy. A helicopter with medical staff picked the elder up later that evening.
This is actually pretty cool. Anyone who hasn’t had the joy of living or working in the far north might not be able to appreciate just how much of a feat it is to survive on your own for an extended period of time. In wilderness areas of the south, there is practically a profusion of resources in comparison. And the fact that the temperature on the ice is so much colder means you need greater amounts of food just to keep your body producing heat to keep you warm and alive.
A couple years ago, a military patrol got cut off just a few miles out of Pangnirtung, a community several hundred miles south of Igloolik. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours before they got picked up, only one night out on the land on their own. Three young men in the prime of their lives, and given their military training, one assumes in near peak physical shape to boot, and they were described as being in rough shape.
Now compare that to an 81 year old elder stuck for a month alone on an ice-floe, coming out apparently none the worse for wear. Local knowledge goes a long way.
