VANCOUVER—Mounties are scaling back their search efforts in northern Manitoba for two fugitives after several days of intensive searches in two remote communities, but said it is far from over.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy said officers canvassed every home — about 500 in total — and searched every abandoned building in Gillam and Fox Lake Cree Nation in the search for Kam McLeod, 19 and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18.

The manhunt, with assistance from the Royal Canadian Air Force, covered 11,000 square kilometres of boggy, densely forested northern Manitoba terrain.

“Over the last week, we’ve done everything we can to locate the suspects,” MacLatchy told reporters in Winnipeg on Wednesday.

The Port Alberni, B.C., men are the subject of a Canada-wide warrant for their arrest on two second-degree murder charges related to the death of Vancouver man Len Dyck, whose body was found near Highway 37 close to Dease Lake, B.C., on July 19. They are also suspects in the homicides of Australian Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, who were found shot to death at the side of the Alaska Highway south of Liard Hot Springs on July 15.

The Toyota RAV4 they were driving was found in flames near Gillam on July 22, and police said there were two confirmed sightings there last week.

The RCMP deployed front-line and tactical officers, forensics specialists and police dogs. An RCMP plane outfitted with infrared sensors was part of search efforts, along with drones and helicopters. Officers in boats searched lakes. But McLeod and Schmegelsky remain at large.

The RCMP is pulling most of its specialized personnel and equipment out of northern Manitoba over the next week, but MacLatchy said the RCMP will not stop the search. A number of RCMP officers and tactical resources will remain in the Gillam area.

“While the search in northern Manitoba is being scaled down, it is not over — not by any means,” MacLatchy said. “I want to assure everyone that the RCMP is continuing to work on this investigation and will not stop until there is a resolution.”

On Saturday, the military sent a CC-130H Hercules aircraft from 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron in Winnipeg to help with an aerial search for the suspects. A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence said in a statement to the Star on Wednesday their assistance was “no longer required.”

“Our aircrew and aircraft have ceased search operations and will be returning to base,” their statement read.

McLeod and Schmegelsky have been on the run across northern Canada for at least nine days, while an exhaustive search has been concentrated in and around Gillam where they were spotted twice last week.

Police have called the search for the pair “pretty unprecedented.”

Investigators have received more than 260 tips in the last week alone, according to a tweet from Manitoba RCMP on Tuesday, and police have gone door to door, canvassing more than 500 homes in Fox Lake Cree Nation and Gillam. None of the tips have led police to determine if the two have left the Gillam area.

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RCMP thought they were closing in on them when they descended on Gillam, where there is just one road in and out of town. But no amount of troops, dogs, drones or helicopters could turn up a trace of the two suspects.

The search for McLeod and Schmegelsky expanded Monday to York Landing, a tiny community about a four-hour drive west of Gillam, after police received a tip that people matching their descriptions were seen at the dump. Despite an “exhaustive search,” RCMP couldn’t substantiate the tip and, on Tuesday morning, officers left town.

MacLatchy thanked RCMP officers and RCAF personnel for their efforts given northern Manitoba’s difficult terrain, voracious bugs and the stress of potentially running into the two murder suspects.

“They’re working really hard. I’m really proud of everything they’ve done,” she told reporters.

The lack of new information about McLeod and Schmegelsky has residents in both Manitoba communities holding their breath.

York Factory First Nation Chief Leroy Constant posted to his Facebook page that he would finally try to get some rest after RCMP finished the search there.

“It’s been a very intense 24 hours in York Landing with very little sleep,” he wrote just after midnight on Tuesday. “We will be out and about tonight.”

MacLatchy praised the northern Manitoba communities for their strength and courage, while admitting that the decision to scale back their efforts won’t be a comfort.

“I know that today’s news is not what the families of the victims and the communities of northern Manitoba wanted to hear,” she said. “But when searching for people in remote locations, it’s always a possibility that they’re not going to be immediately located.”

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