Boater recalls East Arm rescue after spending five days stranded
Search and Rescue called to Great Slave Lake following three incidents
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Friday, July 8, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
When the boat ran out of fuel, Deserae Joanasson and her parents and partner started paddling against the wind for shore.
Two-year-old Easton Loutitt waits for rescue on an island on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake after the boat in the background ran out of fuel. They were on the island five days before being rescued. - photo courtesy of Deserae Joanasson |
Onshore, their attempts to summon help proved unsuccessful until a CC-130 Hercules rumbled overhead five days later.
"I was so happy," said Deserae Joanasson about seeing the military search and rescue plane dispatched from Winnipeg.
"At first I was worried because they sent such a big plane but I was so happy."
Hers is a story of survival during a week when police, the military and various other organizations were called out on three search and rescue efforts on Great Slave Lake on Wednesday alone.
One vessel sank, the one carrying Joanasson's group - along with her toddler son - ran out of fuel, and another carrying two people were reported safe yesterday afternoon.
The high number of distress calls have prompted RCMP to warn boaters to take precautions.
"The RCMP is concerned citizens may be heading out on the water unprepared, unable to contact their loved ones or emergency personnel, or unaware of weather conditions," RCMP Staff Sgt. Bruce McGregor stated in a news release.
"We urge people to always be prepared when heading out on the land or water."
Joanasson, 24, was with four others who left Saturday from Yellowknife where she's going to school to her home community of Lutsel K'e.
She was with her common-law partner Chase Loutitt, their son Easton Loutitt and parents Jennifer Joanasson and Jason Michel.
"I'm not one that likes the bush life and I was kind of hesitant to go back by boat," she said yesterday.
The trip usually takes about four to seven hours by boat. They had been on the water about 12 hours, she said, when the white 18-foot aluminum boat ran out of fuel in the East Arm near the seven kilometre-wide Etthen Island which separates the Hearne Channel from Christie Bay.
"Because it was a new boat, we weren't used to it and we didn't know how to determine how much gas we needed for all of us but clearly we didn't have enough," she said.
After paddling to shore, they spent five days on a small island, running out of milk and Pampers for her son but otherwise fine in terms of food and water.
They built a bonfire on the island with a steep hill overlooking Etthen Island and put fluorescent jackets in trees.
"It was going on five days and we didn't see many boats. None of the boats were coming to us when we were waving," she said.
While on the island, there was a lot of stress among the adults.
"There was a lot of blaming, a lot of crying but we kept ourselves together and my little guy kept us all happy," she said. "He didn't know what was going on and he was just happy the whole time."
They had a SPOT device, which allows people to push a button that notifies a per-programmed person or group of people that the holder needs help and provides coordinates. It also has a function to notify emergency services.
"We were pushing 'help' for several days, since we got on the island but nobody was getting our help messages and our SPOT just died right when we hit the 911 button. We weren't even sure if they got that because it was on for not even a minute and the SPOT died," she said.
They've used it before to summon help without issue.
The Hercules spotted them around 8:30 p.m., about eight hours after pushing the 911 button, she said.
A radio was dropped to establish communication, said Maj. Steven Thompson, deputy commanding officer for 440 Squadron in Yellowknife. Another radio was dropped from a 440 Squadron Twin Otter after the batteries on the first started to die.
It remains unclear at press time whether authorities were actually notified to their location by the SPOT device or merely found them by chance.
The Twin Otter circled overhead until an RCMP boat and another boat reached them about 40 kilometres west of Lutsel K'e just before midnight on Wednesday.
They were taken by boat to Lutsel K'e, reaching the community around 1:30 a.m.
"It felt so good" getting back, she said. "There were a lot of tears and we just held our grandparents. We just held them for a while."
The search took place as the Canadian Armed Forces was carrying out a search and rescue training exercise in Lutsel K'e with other government agencies as part of Operation Nunakput.
"The presence of the military was of tremendous benefit," McGregor, the RCMP officer, told reporters.
It was the second of three searches that began Wednesday.
Earlier that day at about 4:31 a.m. police received a call by satellite phone of a vessel in distress on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, according to an RCMP news release. A group of boats had encountered rough water conditions and one sank. All those on the boat were picked up by the other three boats and they returned to Yellowknife safely, McGregor said.
"This incident serves as a reminder for the public to be prepared for an emergency on the water," a news release states, including a warning to be prepared for rapidly changing weather.
The search for the boat carrying Joanasson took place Wednesday as well.
Then at about 9:40 p.m., police were told of two more boaters missing on the lake.
They left the city Tuesday also bound for Lutsel K'e in a 16-foot boat and were reported safe after 5 p.m. yesterday by RCMP.
