Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Feb 17/99) - Search and rescue (SAR) attempts to locate a missing caribou hunter ended in tragedy last Thursday when SAR members found the man frozen to death about 10 kilometres south of Bibby Island.

Pierre Papak Okoktok, 49, of Rankin Inlet went missing after heading out on a one-day hunting trip from Whale Cove on Jan. 30. There was no trace of Okoktok until Feb. 10 when searchers located his snowmobile and qamutik in the Dawson Inlet, 2.4 kilometres south of Bibby Island and 60 kilometres south of Whale Cove.

Search co-ordinator Shaun Maley said from where SAR members had tracked him, Okoktok had just missed a number of cabins at Sandy Point.

Maley said the best SAR can figure, where his body was found five miles south of his machine, Okoktok didn't know exactly where he was because he was travelling in a blizzard.

He said because of the bad weather, Okoktok probably didn't realize he was almost to Bibby Island and was trying to get off the sea ice and walk back to where he thought he could build an igloo.

"There's a missing link on what happened here. We don't know why he turned around.

The first Sunday he was missing was clear, so maybe his machine broke down and he was working on it. It seems to us by the time his machine ran out of gas, he was in pretty poor shape because he didn't make it very far," said Maley.

"The nature of hyperthermia is that it sneaks up on you and fools you into thinking you're feeling better. You figure OK, I feel better now, so I'm going to head down to where the cabins are or back towards where you think the community is and you get weaker and don't make it." Okoktok's body was flown back to Whale Cove and Maley said Skyward Aviation Ltd. has offered to fly family members down to the hamlet for the funeral this week.

Total cost of the four SAR efforts of the past few weeks has topped the $100,000 mark and Maley said after Nunavut comes to pass, it is hoped more equipment and a budget will be made available to local SAR members.

"We don't have a regional budget for SAR. We have a policy that allows us to spend a $1,000 and after that it's supposed to go to cabinet. In an emergency, we contact our emergency measures people in Yellowknife, tell them what the story is, and they have to approve costs."