Paula White
Northern News Services

INUVIK (July 02/99) - A 36-year-old Aklavik man is presumed drowned after his capsized boat was found along the shores of Shallow Bay June 26.

"It's tragic," said Suzanne Williamson, supervisor at the pool in Aklavik. "It's thrown the entire community into a state of shock."

RCMP Cpl. Maureen Levy said Leslie Gordon disappeared on June 22. Travelling by boat (an 18-foot Lund) at approximately 2 a.m., he had been heading toward Shingle Point, located on the Yukon shore of the Beaufort Sea.

"He was travelling in a party of two boats. He was in the lead boat and he was by himself," Levy said. "The winds were very, very bad. The second boat turned back and made camp at Running River Camp."

Levy said after searching for Gordon, the party in the second boat alerted the police. A search and rescue operation was organized, with the Rescue Control Centre in Trenton, Ont. responding immediately by sending a Hercules from Winnipeg and a Department of National Defence twin otter to the area.

"Furthermore, there was a Cessna 207 charter from Beau Delta that went up immediately in the air to look for Leslie Gordon and his boat and there was a helicopter in the area travelling to Herschel Island on other matters and that helicopter was also attempting to locate Leslie Gordon on our behalf."

The air search failed to locate Gordon. A ground search crew, however, discovered a capsized boat near Shingle Point on the afternoon of June 24. It was later confirmed to be Gordon's. Levy said the ground search continued from June 23, until the evening of June 26.

"Basically, the public search was called off on Saturday night at 6 p.m. because there was no sign of Leslie Gordon, no sign of his remains or whether or not he had, in fact, made it to shore safely." Levy said. "So at this point it is fair to say that Leslie Gordon is presumed to have drowned.

"The winds at the time...were extremely bad and the swells were approximately four feet high," she added. "The weather was very, very bad at the time that he attempted to continue on to Shingle Point."

Levy said while the RCMP public search has been called off, people are continuing the search for Gordon.

"Shingle Point is a whaling camp," she explained. "There's a lot of people down at Shingle Point and they will be on the look-out for Leslie Gordon's remains."

Parks Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, Renewable Resources and Hunters and Trappers Committee members from Aklavik also participated in the search, as well as the local search and rescue team and the Canadian Rangers.

"So there were a lot of people out searching for him," she concluded.