The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
An exhausting search for two missing snowmobilers ended on a positive note yesterday morning when the pair was found stranded on a small island miles outside of Creighton. The young man and woman were cold and shaken but in good condition when the local branch of CASARA (Civil Air Search and Rescue Association) spotted them from an airplane. "If the plane hadn't found them so fast, we would have been out there forever," said Cst. Scott Baron of the Creighton RCMP, which conducted a ground search along with Saskatchewan Environment officers as well as family and friends of the missing. The stranded couple, both local residents, had been traveling on a single snowmobile Sunday afternoon when the machine became entrenched in slush, which eventually froze. Cold and desperate, they took shelter in a group of trees on a small island on Wildnest Lake, where they started a debris fire using a cigarette lighter. Police said the pair had left for their snowmobile venture at 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon and were not located until 9 a.m. yesterday morning Ñ a span of 18 hours. Family and friends conducted their own search before notifying authorities at about 2:30 a.m., police said. Once CASARA spotted the pair, the ground search team was directed to their location. The snowmobilers were taken to a nearby ice shack, where they warmed up and reunited with family and friends. Cst. Baron described them as "frozen but extremely happy." "Their emotions were overrunning," he said. "When they saw the plane, they came running out." On a personal level. Cst. Baron felt a tremendous sense of relief when word came that the missing pair had been located. "A lot of times, when there are situations like this, it's not a positive outcome," he said. CASARA had originally tried to conduct a pre-dawn flight to search for a fire, but the attempt was short-lived due to fog. Police said this incident serves as a reminder that snowmobilers should never travel alone or on a single machine. Out of respect for their privacy, the names of the snowmobilers, aged 18 and 20, were not released.3/30/2004
