IKPIARJUK/ARCTIC BAY
People in Arctic Bay were relieved last week to hear the search for a father and his two sons was soon over, but nobody was more elated than those in the Koonoo household.
The Koonoo men, son Simon, left, dad Moses and son Jeremy had a close call earlier in March after having multiple snowmobile problems out on the land. - photo courtesy of Joanna Koonoo
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"I'm just so happy," said Joanna Koonoo. "We were all so worried."
Her husband Moses, who runs a local taxi service as well as an outfitting business, had taken his two boys Jeremy and Simon, both in their early 20s, to retrieve a snowmobile he had left broken down out on the land days earlier. With the boys on one snowmobile, with the broken down machine loaded up on their qamutik, and Moses on another machine in front, the Koonoo men set off for home.
"It was stormy at that time and at about 200 to 500 yards, I looked back to see if they were following me and they were not following," said Moses. "I could not see my tracks to go back to them; it was so stormy. I knew I was just going to waste my gas trying to find where they are."
Problems then went from bad to worse when Moses' machine began giving him trouble.
"The engine (was) completely kaput, gone, history. It broke down on me," he said.
Moses had a tent, grub box, SPOT device and two-way radio on his machine. However, Jeremy and Simon had put all their gear on their father's qamutik so they could transport the snowmobile. Their father on the other hand had a stove but nothing to light it with, and his two-way radio wasn't working. He set up a tent for the night, used the SPOT registered in his name, then disassembled his two-way radio and got it working well enough to call his wife.
"I explained I lost my sons on the way back."
Back in town, a public announcement went out in the hamlet on Monday, March 4 for volunteers to carry out a search for the two brothers who had become separated from their father near Admiralty Inlet.
Using GPS in a still raging storm, rescuers Matthew Akikulu and Jason Qaunaq left that evening to search, knowing the location of Moses' tent. Volunteers were put on standby for the following morning to search for Jeremy and Simon.
"We could not find their tracks. I got worried. Everybody got worried," said Moses, who added he was confident that with the boys in proper clothing – caribou kamiks and pants, warm parkas and good mitts – they could make it. "When we go out in winter time we are prepared for the cold weather and good thing we were wearing the proper clothing."
Moses went out with the search team to look for his sons, who, it turned out, also had problems with their machine and managed to walk to an empty cabin with a radio at the tip of Victor Bay.
"On the way back I saw some snowmachines coming toward me," said Moses. "They told me my two sons were at the cabin and I started going back full speed. We got happy. Everything came out good."
On Tuesday March 5, as the wind picked up and the temperature dropped, the boys were brought back to to a relieved hamlet.
"They've just been found," said hamlet economic development officer Clare Kines at the time. "It's very good news."
"People are heading out there to get them now and get some food in them."
