IN NORTHERN CANADA, A 17-YR.-OLD HUNTER WAS STRANDED on an ice floe  for three days along with a polar bear.  Jupi Nakoolak and his uncle, age 67, had set out on a snowmobile last Thursday for a 3-day polar bear hunting trip.  But their snowmobile broke down on the first day and Jupi began walking back to the town of Coral Harbor (pop. 750) about 7 miles away.

While he was returning, the ice that he was walking on broke away and started drifting toward the Hudson Bay carrying him as well as a bear and two cubs.

When the pair failed to return on Saturday, the locals organized a search party on Sunday and set out, soon finding the uncle who had just started walking back himself.  But the boy was nowhere to be seen.  The Nunavit director of protective services then downloaded a recent satellite photo of the area and they identified a drifting floe that was most likely where Jupi would be found.

A Canadian Air Force Hecules aircraft located the boy at first light on Monday but they were unable to land any rescuers at the moment, so they dropped a supply of candy bars to him and returned to pick up a rescue team.  They also saw a bear carcass not far from him.  It turned out that the bear had begun stalking him and Jupi had used his rifle to kill it.  “Polar bears are the only animal that will definitely stalk a human and eat them,” said one official. “Nobody goes out on the land here without a gun.”

Two search-and-rescue technicians later parachuted from a C-130 aircraft to a larger ice floe nearby. They swam to where the boy was and treated him for frostbite and dehydration while they waited for a boat to arrive.

The Associated Press has this video report of the rescue: