Days after finding a damaged aluminum boat along the shores of Manitoba’s Nelson River, the RCMP recalled a dive team it had deployed to search for two young men wanted in connection to three homicides in northern B.C.

Five members of the RCMP Underwater Recovery Team were immediately sent out after the discovery of the badly dented and mangled boat Friday afternoon northeast of Gillam, Man. They arrived in the small Manitoba community — a focal point for the ongoing manhunt — on Saturday and began “a thorough underwater search of significant areas of interest,” according to RCMP Manitoba.

But on Monday, the RCMP said the team had finished its work.

“They will not be conducting any additional dives,” read a post on the Twitter page of RCMP Manitoba. “A police roadblock has been put in place today in the Sundance, MB, area for ongoing search efforts.”

As the search for 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky and 19-year-old Kam McLeod hit the two-week mark, Sherman Kong, the chief survival instructor at Maple Leaf Survival in Manitoba, pointed out that people survive in the wilderness all the time in Canada, even those with little or no formal training. Just last week, an 84-year-old survived for four days on her own after reportedly getting lost in the southeast Manitoba bush.

Kong cautioned against the public coming to definitive conclusions as to whether Schmegelsky and McLeod are alive or dead. Instead, Kong said, they need to consider the myriad possibilities: The two could be in the Gillam area — alive, or dead; their bodies might never be found; or, they might have fled the area entirely.

“The number of scenarios that are possible are abundant,” Kong said. “And it’s literally anyone’s guess.”

The two fugitives are charged with second-degree murder in the death of UBC lecturer Leonard Dyck. The men are also suspects in the deaths of Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese.

The Nelson River flows into the Hudson Bay southwest through Manitoba from Lake Winnipeg. It’s nearly 650 kilometres long, dotted with small towns and hydroelectric dams.

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RCMP officers, local police and military have centred their search for Schmegelsky and McLeod on Gillam. The town sits on the southeast shore of Stephens Lake, a reservoir created by the Kettle Dam where the Nelson River continues its journey north into the Hudson Bay. Officers previously found a burned-out Toyota Rav4 the teens were last spotted driving in the area.

Less than 20 kilometres upriver from the Kettle Dam is the Long Spruce Dam, the next of several dams that break up the river as it makes its way to the bay. But other than the dams, beyond Gillam, there are only ghost towns along the Nelson River.

Sundance, where the roadblock had been set up Monday, is roughly 60 kilometres northeast of Gillam.

Searchers have combed about 11,000 square kilometres of boggy, forested wilderness around Gillam looking for any sign of the two young men. Experts have speculated as to whether they could have survived the harsh terrain, while rumours floated that the pair have made their way to Ontario.

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Kong said combing this vast area — and beyond — for the two fugitives isn’t easy, even for experts.

“It’s like saying, ‘Let’s play a game of hide-and-go-seek and the area is going to be 11,000 square kilometres worth of terrain, and I’m not going to tell you where I am — and I’m going to try to hide. Come and find me,’” Kong said.

“Of course it’s difficult.

With files from Tessa Vikander and The Canadian Press

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