Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 15/99) - Respected elder Nelson Green froze to death last weekend after his hunting cabin burned to the ground.

Green and Charlie Ruben were loading a wood stove at a cabin 100 kilometres outside Paulatuk when a blaze suddenly started and engulfed the cabin. The two had to vacate the cabin and did not have time to fetch any winter gear such as parkas.

"They have an old stove in that shack," says Charlie's uncle, Markus Ruben Sr.

"They'd just got time enough to run out and the weather must have been about 40 or 50 below with the wind- chill. It was pretty cold but he made it home. He's lucky he didn't have Ski-Doo trouble."

The two quickly boarded their snowmobiles for the long journey back home but at about the 25-kilometre mark, Green found it difficult to continue and told Ruben to keep going for help.

Ruben made it back to the community and sent a search party out immediately but when the group found Green about two hours later, it was too late to revive him.

No date for a funeral had been set by press time.