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SALLIQ/CORAL HARBOUR - Two Saliqmuit hunters returned safe and sound after a dangerous night trapped on a drifting ice floe in Hudson Bay.

On March 12 Greg Ningeocheak and Sandy Pudlat were hunting for polar bear in Evans Strait when they found themselves floating away from the edge.

"We were worried," Ningeocheak recalled. "The ice we were on was getting smaller." Ningeocheak estimated the ice was less than 150 metres by 100 metres.

They knew there was a chance of unstable ice conditions because it was a full moon that night, which causes ice to shift.

Ningeocheak had a satellite phone which he used to call his father Jimmy Ningeocheak who informed the hamlet, which put search and rescue procedures into operation.

Casey Paniyuk was one of the co-ordinators of the rescue effort.

"If they never had a (satellite) phone ... we wouldn't have known that they were drifting out on the sea ice," Paniyuk said.

Ningeocheak and Pudlat had planned to overnight on the land so without the phone, no one in Coral Harbour would have known to mount a rescue operation until the following day.

Less than two hours after Ningeocheak called his father, two search parties set out from Coral Harbour by snowmobile. They found the pair only a few hours later, floating roughly five to six km away from the edge. The searchers could only identify Ningeocheak and Pudlat's position by the lights of their snowmobiles.

A few hours later a Hercules plane dispatched from CFB Trenton in Ontario dropped supplies to the hunters and the searchers:. Although they had been found there was no way to get Ningeocheak and Pudlat off the ice. The two spent a night in the open with temperatures at -30 C and winds of up to 30 km/h.

"We barely slept that night," said Ningeocheak. They had to keep themselves alert and their equipment ready to move at a moment's notice if the floating ice hit a solid edge.

The next morning when the ice reached the opposite edge of the open water. Ningeocheak and Pudlat were able to cross over onto solid ice.

They met up with with the search parties and returned to Coral Harbour.