WINNIPEG - Whipped by 50km/h, frigid Arctic winds, Master Cpl. Dwayne Guay leapt 3,000 feet to a chunk of ice floating on the Beaufort Sea.

He's not a thrill seeker, but a military parachutist with Canada Search and Rescue. Last week he and fellow rescuer Sgt. David Cooper jumped from a C-130 Hercules airplane to the aid of stranded Paulatuk hunter Bill Wolki.

Canadian Forces search and rescue technicians Master Cpl. Dwayne Guay, left, and Sgt. David Cooper parachuted onto the Cape Parry ice floe during the night. They built a survival camp and assisted stranded hunting guide Bill Wolki. - photo courtesy of 435 squadron Winnipeg

Wolki, an experienced hunter and outfitter, was out with three other people when his small watercraft was blown out to sea, according to his brother-in-law, James Ruben.

The rest of Wolki's hunting party was on shore when the winds swept him away.

He eventually found refuge on an ice floe in the Amundsen Gulf near Cape Parry. Temperatures hovered near a frigid -30C.

While Wolki found himself in a distressing situation, nearly 2,500-kilometres away, in Winnipeg, Guay's day began like any other.

Just prior to being called to action, he was shopping for tea with his wife.

A note on his beeper summoned him to the Winnipeg 17-Wing airbase where Guay, who is with the 435 Squadron, prepared to journey to the top of the world.

Guay said he'd heard a hunter was missing, but didn't know much else.

He didn't even know he'd be parachuting that night.

"You anticipate there's a possibility," he said, adding the equipment is always on board the plane.

When the Hercules arrived at the scene, it circled the ice floes, as Twin Otter aircraft dropped military flares.

Wolki was spotted on a jagged half-kilometer by kilometer ice floe, and the parachutists jumped at 3,000 feet.

It was a cloudless night over Cape Parry, Guay said, and the jumpers aimed their chutes towards an illuminated ice patch.

"If at any point we had misjudged the ice floe, we might have fallen in the water and died. Or, we could have fallen onto a ridge and broken (our) bones. So there were definitely elements of danger," he said.

When the jumpers arrived on the ice - strapped with 110 pounds of gear including a medical kit, a rifle and snowshoes - they found Wolki in good condition.

The first thing he requested was a weapon.

"He was a little lethargic, because he'd been there for 12 hours, but he was very familiar with the area and said he knew there would be polar bears in the area," Guay said.

The rescuers handed Wolki a rifle and set about building a camp from a supply sled, which was dropped from the Hercules shortly after the jump.

He said the team finally used ice screws - similar to those used by mountain climbers - to anchor the tent, and once inside, fired up a camping stove and NAPTHA burner.

After about an hour, the temperature inside rose to -5 C, and both Wolki and the rescuers ate military rations.

Eventually, they drifted to sleep in sleeping bags.

"By the time we had set up the camp, we were comfortable, and we took the opportunity to get some rest," Guay said.

But when the team awoke three hours later, around 8 a.m., the weather was not much better.

Cold winds still whipped at the tent canvas, and a helicopter in Inuvik could not rescue them until the weather improved.

That night, a Cormorant helicopter finally arrived and took them away.

Wolki went to Brown's Harbour hunting camp to meet his wife, Guay said, while he and Cooper went to Inuvik for the night.

It has been a week since Wolki's dramatic rescue and still he said he is too overwhelmed to talk about the event. "I feel like I need to relax a bit first," Wolki said on Feb. 21. "I need some time to recover, for things to come back to normal."