Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (May 27/02) - NWT chief coroner Percy Kinney and Inuvik elders are reminding people that travel on the ice is unsafe during breakup.

"At this time of year, you're taking a chance no matter where you are," Kinney said, commenting on Wednesday's death of a snowmobiler who fell through thin ice. "People will always take the risk and this is what happens. In the end, is it worth it? The answer is always no."

Fort McPherson elder Bertha Francis has been warning people to stay off the ice since early May. Francis monitors bush radio to report on the local station and CBC Inuvik about ice conditions.

"When it rains before ice moves, it really turns to candle ice," she said.

"To travel with big heavy Skidoos, it's not safe. It's even a danger to walk on it."

She said elder Neil Colin, who stays at the mouth of the Peel near the main goose hunting area, has been on bush radio warning people not to travel.

"He said, 'Tell the young people the ice is not safe.' That's why I really tried to stress it as strongly as I could to prevent something like what just happened.

"A lot of young people don't want to listen to what the elders say."

Wednesday's death was the third such fatality in the NWT in the last five years.

In December 2000, a 31-year-old Yellowknife woman froze to death after falling through ice on her snowmobile, and in May 1998, a 13-year-old Tuktoyaktuk boy drowned in a similar incident.