Woman dies in Kugluktuk snowmobiling accident

A womanin Kugluktuk, Nunavut, died Saturday night after the snowmobile she and her husband were riding on fell through river ice.

Local RCMP say Mary Jean and JeffreyHopkins were snowmobiling along a trail across the Coppermine River, about one kilometre outside of the hamlet, around 7:30 p.m. MT on Saturday.

"He had been travelling on the snowmobile with his wife, and the two became disorientated in the weather with some blowing snow, and they veered off the trail," detachment commander Sgt. Chris Bewsher told CBC News on Monday.

"Doing so, they came close to an open patch of water and their snowmobile subsequently broke through the ice."

The temperature in Kugluktuk Saturday evening hovered near -9 C but felt like -17 C with the wind chill, according to Environment Canada. Visibility was at about 24 kilometres.

Bewsher said Jeffrey Hopkins tried to rescuehis wifeby rolling on the ice to get close to her, but hypothermia set in.

"He had difficulty walking and subsequently had to crawl back from the scene of the accident to the community — which is a distance of maybe two kilometres —on his hands, by dragging his body," Bewsher said.

"It took him approximately five or six hours to do that, at which point, when he got close to the community, he was able to yell for help and somebody came to his rescue."

RCMP and a Kugluktuk search and rescue crew found the body of Mary Jean Hopkins on Sunday morning. Jeffrey Hopkins was sent by medevac to Edmonton for treatment of advanced hypothermia and frostbite.

Kugluktuk,a hamletof 1,300,is located about 2,100 kilometres west of Iqaluit.

Speaking in Nunavut's legislative assembly Monday afternoon, Kugluktuk MLA Joe Allen Evyagotailak expressed his "deepest condolences" to the couple's family.