Baker Lake (Jun 19/06) - Baker Lake residents are mourning this week after two men drowned while trying to skim their 450-pound plus snowmobile over an open stretch of water outside the Kivalliq community.

World-renowned Inuit artist Aoudla Pudlat, 54, and Allistair Peryouar, 28, died when their machine plunged into about three metres of water on June 12.

The men were hunting and fishing on the shores of a partially-frozen Baker Lake when they tried to skim over a 50-metre swath of open water, said RCMP Cpl. Cam Lockwood.

The brother-in-law of one of the men saw the accident from the shore and paddled out in a canoe, Lockwood said. But by the time he reached the scene, they had already slipped below the surface of the near-freezing water.

"People react differently to hypothermia," Lockwood said. "(But) once it sets in, there is not much you can do."

With no phone - the men were staying in a cabin about 25km from Baker Lake - the brother-in-law was forced to make his way back to the hamlet via boat and snowmobile.

Police received the emergency call at about 11:45 p.m. and it took two Mounties and three members of the community more than an hour to reach the scene of what had become a recovery operation.

"There is a lot of grief in the community," Lockwood said.

The deaths leave a void in the community of 1,500, where Pudlat was a well-know painter and carver. He was originally from Cape Dorset, according to the prestigious National Gallery, whose website features almost two-dozen Pudlat paintings.

Pudlat had a common-law wife and grown children in Cape Dorset, said Lockwood. Peryouar was single.

The accident has caused many Baker residents to pull their snowmobiles away from the shore in an area where skipping the machines over water is common, Lockwood said.

While snowmobiles can skim, the fact that both men were on the same machine could have contributed to the accident, Lockwood said.

Even so, snowmobiles should avoid the stunt unless absolutely necessary and even then only with flotation devices, Lockwood said. Pudlat and Peryouar were not wearing life jackets or float suits. Lockwood said the practice of skipping is almost non-existent in the Baker area.

"Snowmobiles are not meant to operate on water," he said. "People should take precautions."

Peryouar's funeral was scheduled for Friday afternoon while Pudlat's was supposed to go ahead Saturday.