Missing Canadian teenager survives three days on ice floe

A Canadian teenager has been rescued unharmed, apart from minor frostbite, after drifting for almost three days on an ice floe together with two polar bear cubs and the carcass of their mother which he shot in self defence.

The 17-year-old, who was named locally as Jupi Nakoolak, was suffering from hypothermia after the temperature fell below -15C, but was otherwise well, conscious and speaking to his rescuers, who crawled across ice floes to reach him.



Nakoolak told them he shot the adult bear when it came too close, and then got as far away as possible on the ice from the cubs, which remained with the body.

He had been stranded since Saturday evening, when he and his 67-year-old uncle got into trouble during a hunting expedition and the ice floe on which he was standing broke away. Nakoolak's only food was a small package of chocolate bars, dropped late on Sunday by a small aircraft chartered by the Canadian government, but the pilot and the crew of another plane lost sight of the teenager in the gathering darkness. The search continued through the night, with flares being dropped to light up the frozen landscape. But Nakoolak was not located until daylight yesterday.

Full story here.