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Pair drown outside Baker Lake

Andrew Raven
Northern News Services

Baker Lake (Jun 21/06) - Baker Lake residents are mourning this week after two men drowned while trying to skip their 450-pound-plus snowmobile over an open stretch of water outside the community.

Dead are nationally-renowned Inuit artist Aoudla Pudlat, 54, and Allistair Peryouar, 28, who perished 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.

Pudlat, originally from Cape Dorset, has been featured on the National Gallery of Canada's website and his paintings and etchings grace some of the top studios in the country.

Funerals for the men were held Friday and Saturday and Lockwood said the inland community of 1,500 was grieving.

A hunting companion saw the accident from the shore and paddled out in a canoe, Lockwood said.

But by the time he reached the scene, Pudlat and Peryouar had already slipped below the surface of the near-freezing water.

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

With no phone - the men were staying in a cabin about 25 km from Baker Lake - the witness was forced to make it back to the hamlet via boat and snowmobile to alert authorities.

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.

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, snowmobilers 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, a practice that is almost non-existent in the Baker area, Lockwood said.

"Snowmobiles are not meant to operate on water," he said.

"People should take precautions."