HAY RIVER - A bus driver is recovering at home in Hay River after being stabbed several times in Behchoko two weeks ago. Ian Constable, 52, a driver with Frontier Coachlines, was delivering mail to the post office in Behchoko around 2:30 a.m. March 16 when, he was attacked.

Ian Constable is at home recovering from stab wounds he suffered following an attack in Behchoko on March 16. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Ian Constable said he had never seen the attacker before.

Constable, a driver with Frontier Coachlines, said he had just dropped some mail from Yellowknife into a locked steel bin in front of the Northern Store and was walking along the side of his van when he was attacked.

The victim said he heard the attacker say, 'Where are you going?"

Constable said, before he knew it, he was on the ground fighting with the attacker.

"It just seemed so strange and so random," he said.

His wife Katherine said the youth stabbed Constable in the back and then four additional times, cutting the tendons in his fingers as Constable tried to pull the knife away.

Katherine also dispelled other media coverage reporting the youth asked Constable for a ride and he had refused.

"He didn't talk to the guy," she said.

Behchoko RCMP arrested a 16-year-old boy later that day and charged him with two counts of aggravated assault. The second charged stems from another knife attack on a 21-year-old man at around 12:30 a.m. the same day. The 21-year-old was taken to the Behchoko health centre with non-life-threatening injuries.

Constable was released from Yellowknife hospital, where he underwent surgery, and on March 23 returned to Hay River, where he and his family have lived for two years. He faces a minimum of four to six weeks recovery time, after which, his wife says, he'll likely go back to work.

"He's going to try, but it won't be for a while now," she said. "He loves people. He loves driving the bus."

Constable had been driving the route from Hay River to Enterprise to Fort Providence to Behchoko to Yellowknife and back, stopping in Behchoko every second night, without any problems.

"I've gone with him on different nights and there's always been people around. This night it just happened that there wasn't anybody at that time of night," Katherine said, though she wasn't there at the time. "It was a scary situation."

Colleen Gagner, a spokesperson for Frontier Coachlines, said "He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time."

A March 17 news release from Behchoko RCMP said the detachment, along with the G Division Major Crimes Unit were still investigating the case, although police could not be reached for further comment.

- with files from Andrew Livingstone