Amanda Vaughan
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 12, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - The search for the body of 27-year-old Jaxon Smith was suspended yesterday, after the vehicle he was trapped in when it plunged into Giauque Lake turned up empty.

"We will revisit the situation in the spring," said RCMP Const. Roxanne Dreilich.

Jaxon Smith: presumed dead after SUV went through the ice at Giauque Lake, Dec. 1. - photo courtesy of www.facebook.com

Smith was riding in a Toyota Land Cruiser with two other men on Giauque Lake Dec. 1, when the vehicle went through the ice. The other two men were able to escape.

Search teams began their efforts where they believed the vehicle broke through, and according to Dreilich, more than 100 holes were drilled in the ice in a grid pattern as they scoured the bottom of the lake with underwater cameras looking for the vehicle, to determine if Smith's body was in it.

The vehicle was located at a depth of approximately 168 feet, and nearly 80 feet away from where it broke through the ice.

Dreilich said the police-contracted diving company had not actually gone into the water until after the vehicle was located.

"The initial search was conducted using underwater cameras," she said.

Dreilich said that even with cold water gear, the divers needed to have the vehicle brought closer to the surface to inspect it.

According to an RCMP release, after a weekend of shoring up the ice, and constructing a hoist frame, divers were finally able to enter the water of Giauque Lake Dec. 10. They were disappointed to discover that Smith's body was not in the Toyota.

Dreilich said the RCMP will continue their search when the conditions change in the spring, and at that time they will try to identify the currents in the lake to determine where the body could have ended up.

Smith was an employee of Tyhee Developments, the company which owns the Discovery Mine site, which is on the south shore of Giauque Lake.

He resided in Wetaskawin, Alta. at the time of the accident, however he had spent his teen years in Yellowknife. There has been an outpouring of sympathy on the social networking website, Facebook, where a group in Smith's memory has been created. Some of the pictures include shots from a vacation in Barbados posted by Smith's widow.

There were two memorial services, one in Yellowknife at Northern United Place church on Dec. 7, and then another on Dec. 8 at a funeral home in Edmonton.