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Rangers Maurice Mack and Aaron Isaac found Kakekaspan walking — about 20 kilometres north of Peawanuck — around 7 a.m.

“He’d been walking for the last two hours after his snow machine ran out of fuel,” said Gull, who visited Kakekaspan at the nurse’s station in Peawanuck after his rescue.

‘You could tell he was fatigued and you could tell he had hypothermia but he was still in good spirits’

“He said the road was fine when he left Peawanuck but it wasn’t until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., when he started missing the trail. It didn’t help his headlight burned out. Hence why he was walking around trying to feel for his track beneath the snow.

“He said he had difficulty finding his trail and he kept feeling disoriented, fatigue and hypothermia.”

Kakekaspan said he ran out of fuel around 7 a.m. and continued on foot.

“He is a well known and respected pastor, a highly respected community elder along the coast. He was dressed appropriately but didn’t have a tent or stove. His sat phone wouldn’t work,” said Gull.

“He was tired. You could tell he was fatigued and you could tell he had hypothermia but he was still in good spirits. He didn’t want to go to the nurse’s station he wanted to go to a friend’s house to rest and warm up.”

Kakekaspan was released late Wednesday and was being escorted back to Fort Severn by the Fort Severn Rangers who had been out searching for him: Sgt. Mary Miles and Ranger Sinclair Childforever.

Childforever is one of many foster children in the community who have stayed with Kakekaspan and his wife over the years.

OPP Sgt. Jamie Stirling, the provincial search and rescue co-ordinator, said Kakekaspan was found by the Rangers just as a police search and rescue airplane, equipped with infrared thermal imaging equipment, was taking off from Thunder Bay.

The Rangers’ quick, on-the-ground search saves lives, he said.

Air support to that region is six or eight hours away — at best — making immediate ground search essential.

Over the Christmas holidays, the OPP and Rangers conducted four northern search and rescue operations, saving two lives.

“The environment in the north is far more harsh and robust. Things we take for granted in southern Ontario you can’t in the north,” said Stirling.

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