YELLOWKNIFE - Forty years ago, Robert Gauchie's heart was thumping hard in his chest as the tiny speck flying off in the distance appeared to turn around and head back towards him.

He had fired off a flare - one of his last - and now the turbo Beaver was coming back. He was saved.

Here's a view of the cockpit of Bob Gauchie's Beaver airplane. He managed to land the plane on an isolated lake near Great Bear Lake. He spent 58 days waiting to be rescued. - photo courtesy of Patty Gauchie Survival Stories - Martin Hartwell survived 32 days after crashing his plane and resorting to cannibalism near Great Bear Lake in 1972. - In 1961, prospectors Dean Rossworn and John Richardson spent more than two months trapped in the Nahanni Valley when their plane failed to pick them up.

The date was April 1, 1967 - April Fool's Day - but this was no joke.

After 58 days stranded alone on the Barrens, Gauchie was going home - to his wife, his three daughters, to the life he had pretty much written off the night before in his diary.

"I was just standing there having a leak or something, figuring he was long gone," the 79-year-old recalled in a phone interview last week from Mount St. Mary's senior's home in Victoria, B.C.

"But he started getting bigger, and I thought he might be coming back.

"I waited and fired another flare, but by this time there was no doubt that he saw me."

Gauchie's ordeal began on Feb. 2. The bush pilot was heading back to Yellowknife from Cambridge Bay where he dropped off a group of government engineers.

His plane - a single-engine Beaver - was empty for the return trip. All that he was carrying back to Yellowknife was a couple boxes of frozen Arctic char he had picked up for friends.

It was a beautiful, sunny day when he left Cambridge Bay but dreadfully cold. The compass-style, needle thermometer in his cockpit read -58C.

All was fine until he passed Contwoyto Lake - about 360 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife. The weather suddenly turned nasty and Gauchie was forced to land his skied aircraft on a frozen lake.

The next morning, on Feb. 3, Gauchie struck out again, but after flying some 240 kilometres he again countered rough weather.

"I got way off track, and I eventually had to land for a lack of fuel. I was way, way lost."

Gauchie was 300 kilometres off course when he landed on Samandre Lake, near the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake - some 400 kilometres north of Yellowknife.

It's a short flight to the old Echo Bay mine site on Great Bear, but in the vast, unpopulated Barrens it might as well be on the moon.

"I covered the airplane and made my bed in the airplane on the floor. That ended up being my permanent bed for 58 days."

His immediate problem while awaiting rescue was the extreme cold.

"It was so damn cold," said Gauchie.

"I had a thermometer in my airplane and it went to 60 below, and that damn needle stayed on that 60 below for 14 days."

His chances for survival were greatly increased by the four sleeping bags left behind by his departed passengers in Cambridge Bay. They didn't want to bring them but because the Beaver often got cold during flight Gauchie insisted. He would have froze to death without them, he said.

Gauchie's plane was well stocked with five days of rations for five people, mostly rice, dried soup and vegetables, plus he had the char.

But Gauchie had trouble getting a fire going.

The tiny, ancient trees at the edge of the lake were as hard as steel and impossible to cut with his axe, and there was little fuel left on the plane to burn.

He had fishing gear, and with his axe he tried to cut through the lake ice but he gave up after fruitlessly chipping his way down five-and-a-half feet without seeing water.

Gauchie also had a rifle, but caribou never came close enough to shoot.

For drinking water, Gauchie kept chipped ice in a container inside the plane. When he was thirsty, he grabbed a couple chunks and sucked on them.

It wasn't until late into the game that he thought about using the hydraulic fuel in the plane for a fire. Using the hydraulic fuel and bandages from his first aid kit with the Inuit qulliq oil lamp he had in the plane, he managed to get a fire going for a few minutes.

"I tried that out but I wasn't as good at it as the Eskimos," said Gauchie. "I was able to boil some fish, but then the fire went up and I had to chuck the whole thing outside the door."

His one happy consolation were the wolves that began to show up around his plane.

"They were good company. I didn't shoot them. I became no threat to them at all. They didn't come right up, but they would come within 50 feet."

Due to the bitter cold, Gauchie spent most of the time huddled inside the plane. Periodically, he would step outside to stamp out S.O.S. signals on the snow.

He thought often about his wife and children.

"It was darn lonely," said Gauchie.

The night before his rescue, Gauchie wrote down that in his estimation he was good for only another three days before succumbing to cold and starvation.

His 5'10", 225lbs frame had been whittled down to 146lbs, and his feet were badly frozen. He would later lose three toes on his right foot and two on his left to amputation.

"I was feeling weak and my toes had thawed and rotted," said Gauchie.

It was near sundown on April 1 when his rescuers neared the frozen camp, flying low beneath the clouds.

Gauchie almost missed his chance. When he heard the low whine of the approaching turbo Beaver, he had to race to untangle himself from his bedding of sleeping bags so he could take his second last flare and fire it out the door.

Gauchie had seen other planes fly overhead during his ordeal - a DC-3, a couple Beavers, and a Cessna - but none saw him or the 200-foot S.O.S. signals he had stamped into the snow.

He would later learn that the search for him began the day after he left for Yellowknife. They gave up after 15 days.

His liberators, led by pilot Ron Sheardown, were late getting out of Yellowknife with a load of supplies heading for a mining camp at Hope Lake - about 65 kilometres southwest of Kugluktuk, then called Coppermine.

Sheardown, who now lives in Anchorage, Alaska, recalls being in the back of the plane when his engineer Glen Stevens - who was piloting the plane - reported a flash of light from the right side of the aircraft.

"We just happened to have the sun low enough to catch that flash."

Sheardown ordered Stevens to turn around, and then took over the controls.

As they approached Gauchie's camp, a frost-coated plane appeared on the lake ice along with a solitary figure pacing around it.

It dawned on Sheardown that it must be Gauchie. His disappearance two months before was a big news story. Even though the search was called off weeks ago, most bush pilots - including himself - were still keeping an eye out for the missing plane.

"He had this little blue suitcase like this guy waiting at a bus stop," said Sheardown, who still keeps in touch with Gauchie.

"He was ready to leave."

The engine had been left running. Sheardown was having problems with the plane's ignition and was afraid to turn it off and risk getting stranded himself.

After taking off, Sheardown handed Gauchie the controls.

He hoped it would help occupy his mind while they continued on to Hope Lake to unload and re-fuel. He was already on his headset informing authorities that Gauchie had been found.

From Hope Lake, they continued on to Kugluktuk where a nurse assessed Gauchie's condition.

Gauchie was taken to Stanton Hospital where he spent the next 13 days.

His wife and oldest daughter were brought up from Fort Smith followed by his other two daughters the next day. After Stanton, he was flown to Edmonton to have his toes amputated.

Buffalo Airways owner Joe McBryan said a buzz was growing in Yellowknife almost immediately after Gauchie was found.

He had been written off for dead long ago. A memorial had already been held for him at Gauchie's favourite hangout, the Legion hall.

On the night of his rescue, someone came into the hall to blurt out the good news but it was not well received, said McBryan. "Everybody thought it was a sick April Fool's joke."

Gauchie founded Buffalo Airways in 1968 and McBryan took over the business in 1970.

"There was a party going on at the Legion and this guy walked in and said, 'They found Gauchie.' He just about got beaten up."

After 40 years, the cold still bothers Gauchie. He reckons his long sojourn in the Barrens and subsequent amputations have damaged his circulation.

For years, Gauchie regularly visited Yellowknife to take part in the biennial Float Plane Fly-in party, but Gauchie said he is no longer up for the trip.

"I had a stroke, that's why I'm now in a wheelchair," said Gauchie.

Last Sunday, his family and friends held a party to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his rescue.