NWT - Police in the Mackenzie Delta are urging caution around frozen lakes and rivers while slightly milder temperatures prolong freeze-up in many communities.

Ice conditions were slushy on the Arctic Red River Oct. 22, 2009. - photo courtesy of Lawrence Norbert

Tuktoyaktuk RCMP responded to a close call a few weeks ago, when a man's snowmobile fell through the ice into Tuk's harbour while he was trying to set fishing nets.

"He got ashore safely; there were no injuries or anything like that," said Cpl. Calvin Roberts, adding the harbour is the most dangerous spot right now because the ocean is still open water.

"Most of the lakes around here are quite hard enough to be on anyway by now," he said. "It's generally pretty safe around here."

The temperature in Tuk dropped to -18 C during the third week of October, so far the coldest of the season, but by last Wednesday it was back up to a relatively balmy -3 C.

By comparison, Tuk's temperature on Oct. 28 over the past five years has averaged between -8 C and -21 C.

The other seven communities in the region, with the exception of Ulukhaktok, also experienced slightly warmer weather last week compared to seasons past, according to historical climate data from Environment Canada.

Fortunately, the brief mercury spike doesn't seem to have made community residents foolhardy when it comes to going out on the ice.

Inuvik RCMP Staff Sgt. Cliff McKay said the detachment ran radio spots earlier in the season to warn people about the dangers of thin ice, particularly the layer covering the "dark, murky" waters of the Mackenzie River.

"There's just a lot of very dangerous things that can go wrong with this river and with other bodies of water around here," McKay said. "If you are in a situation where you've got to be rescued, you know that somebody else is going to have to put themselves in harm's way to save you."

When there is a need for such a rescue, police typically team up with community volunteer fire departments, often relying on firefighters' equipment, such as flotation devices and airboats.

"We've got a little bit of training with rescue but they have the equipment," McKay said. "If I was in that situation and I had to make a phone call, my first phone call would be to the fire department."

Inuvik fire chief Al German said he's seen several residents crossing the river already and his department is fully prepared for a rescue operation, though "usually it's not a rescue in this type of a condition – it's usually a recovery."

"It's going to be another couple of weeks and then everything will be OK. This is a dangerous time right now – everybody's testing the waters, so to speak," he said.

"They're just getting better machines that are faster."

But fire departments in the smaller communities have a limited number of volunteers, often banding together with helpful citizens during an emergency, and in most Delta communities, police and firefighters dom't have a lot of rescue training practice.

Paulatuk RCMP Cpl. Damon Werrell said residents have been driving their snowmobiles over the ice without incident as of yet, though he added that the two-person detachment will consider setting up a joint rescue training exercise with local volunteer firefighters.

"That's something that's a work in progress that we haven't worked on yet but I suspect it will probably be soon," he said.