Freda Hope, 31, showed strength and determination before she died of hypothermia after her snow machine crashed through thin ice on Prosperous Lake on Saturday. Her male companion also came close to death as he awaited help with a broken leg after he crashed his own snow machine into a rock.
Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Dec 06/00) - Two accidents turned a Saturday afternoon outing on Prosperous Lake into tests of endurance and perseverance that ended in the death for a young woman.
Freda Hope, 31, died of hypothermia after her snow machine went through thin ice on the lake 17 km northeast of Yellowknife.
| A chronic problem
Percy Kinney is urging authorities to post a warning sign on the dangers of snowmobiling at this time of year on Prosperous Lake. The NWT Chief Coroner told Yellowknifer too many accidents have happened over the years in this area and Saturday's death of Freda Hope is evidence enough that something has to be done. "Seasoned snowmobilers know its not a place to go this time of year. This is a chronic incident area. We've had machines go through that very spot before," he said, adding, last winter a resident survived after going through the ice in the same spot. Kinney said because the area is outside city limits his office will recommend that the GNWT post a sign warning against snowmobiling on Prosperous Lake.
"We have other areas inside city limits with the same problems -- the causeway and at the Jackfish Lake power plant -- we mark them, so we should be able to mark these areas outside the city as well," Kinney said.
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The pair had been travelling together Saturday afternoon, but Hope was behind and out of sight when her companion crashed into a rock hidden in the snow and slushy ice.
Bleeding and badly injured, he leaned against his machine with a broken leg, cold and in pain. He heard Hope's machine buzzing in the distance.
Then she went through the thin ice, but was able to get clear of her machine which quickly sank in 15 feet of water.
Soaked through by the accident, she struggled to a nearby cabin. Searchers found her there Sunday afternoon, frozen to death.
"She showed a phenomenal amount of perseverance," said NWT Chief Coroner Percy Kinney. "I'm amazed she could walk as far as she did."
She walked a kilometre with no footwear or gloves, soaking wet for a half hour to 45 minutes, Kinney said.
Her companion might also have died of exposure, if it weren't for Bob Johnson and Tony Lafferty, Kinney said.
The men were looking for firewood when they found Hope's companion.
"All of a sudden we came upon this one area," Johnson said. "The ice was all busted up and there was a Ski-Doo helmet floating there."
He bolted toward the road to notify someone but had missed Hope by about an hour.
Instead he discovered her companion around a bend.
Johnson noticed a lot of blood and the man was still semi-conscious and in a dangerous state of hypothermia.
Johnson said he asked, here is my girlfriend?" and said he thought she may have driven her machine through the ice.
Lafferty broke a trail to the shore then came back to collect the injured man. Lafferty and Johnson reached the road and flagged down a truck with hunters returning with caribou meat.
"I took all of their clothes," Johnson said and used them to keep the man warm."
Immediately behind the hunters another vehicle with a camper unit stopped to help.
The man was bundled up in sleeping bags and taken to the hospital by the driver.
Johnson said he thought the driver of that vehicle used a cell phone to contact RCMP who called the Yellowknife Fire Department who immediately sent a dive rescue team.
"Chances are she was dead before anyone ever got out there," Kinney said.
It was almost 4 p.m. by the time the fire department was called and it took them about 45 minutes to get to the lake.
The fire department located Hope's snowmobile under 15 feet of water and also did a ground search but found nothing.
The search was continued the next day at daylight. It was led by RCMP but included the military and Arctic Diving.
Rescuers cut a hole in the ice and attached a diver by a 100-foot rope and did a circular sweep.
"They found her machine and they found her boot, one of her mukluks," Kinney said.
"But there was no sign of the victim."
A second dive was done but rescuers found it odd that she was not within a 100-foot radius of her snowmobile so they did another land search.
"Fellows searching further down the ice found her gloves and then we found her about a kilometre away," Kinney said.
