Karen Mackenzie
Northern News Services
Monday, July 9, 2007

COPPERMINE - A 45-year-old man died in Kugluktuk on Canada Day after his snowmobile sank while he was attempting to "skip" across open water.

Harry Aviak was skipping his snowmobile across the surface of Heart Lake, about 10 kilometres northwest of the town, when the vehicle sank, according to hamlet SAO Linda Allen.

"The water was too cold and it was just too far from the shore to reach him," she said.

Police arrived to find about 75 to 100 people gathered on the shore, "with one or two boats paddling around trying to locate where he went down," said Sgt. Chris Bewsher, who was one of the officers on call that day.

He said he believed one of Aviak’s children - a daughter - to be among those in the crowd.

RCMP co-ordinated search teams of four people per boat. Using drag bars, searchers worked for four and a half to five hours before the body was recovered, Bewsher said.

Water skipping is a early summer game, "but unfortunately this time the people were not prepared for the cold water. It was a very warm day," Allen said. "They were anxious to move into summer and didn’t have the safety equipment they needed."

Aviak was part of a group of residents who had gone out to the lake on their own following the hamlet’s celebrations at the baseball park.

"We believe that he had a reputation in the community for being an avid water skipper in the spring time, and that he was very able at it," Bewsher said, but stressed that water skipping is a "very dangerous activity."

"It was a very tragic ending to the day," Allen said.

"We’re all joining his family and friends in mourning."