CORAL HARBOUR, NUNAVUT–Battling hypothermia and freezing skin, a teenage hunter was forced to shoot and kill a polar bear as he waited for more than a day to be rescued from a large chunk of drifting sea ice in the Canadian North.

The 17-year-old was treated for hypothermia in Churchill, Man., after being rescued Monday.

The teen and his 67-year-old uncle, who were polar bear hunting, were reported missing late Saturday, said Ed Zebedee, director of the Nunavut government's protection services branch.

The pair's snowmobile broke down 18 kilometres from Coral Harbour, a tiny community on Nunavut's Southampton Island in the northern part of Hudson Bay.

Walking toward the community to get help, they were separated. A large chunk of ice broke off, setting the teen adrift, said Zebedee.

Searchers picked up the uncle Sunday morning.

Sometime before Sunday afternoon, the teen, who was armed with a rifle, encountered three bears, likely a female and two older cubs, on the same large ice pan.

One bear, likely the adult, got too close.

"He did have to shoot the polar bear to protect himself," said Zebedee. "There were two other bears on the ice pan but they stayed away from him so he didn't shoot at them at all."

The two cubs remained with the carcass and the teen positioned himself as far away from them as he could.

Jean-Pierre Sharp, with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Ontario, said an aerial search was launched Sunday morning.

A pilot on a small plane chartered by a government search-and-rescue agency spotted the teen Sunday afternoon and also saw the carcass of a bear. Zebedee said the crew dropped a plastic container of chocolate bars and candy to the youth.

Neither that plane nor a Hercules aircraft that spotted the teen was able to rescue him before nightfall, and after they lost sight of him, the search continued overnight.

On Monday morning, the crew on the military search-and-rescue aircraft again spotted the youth.

Two search-and-rescue technicians parachuted to a larger ice floe a short distance away.

"Even after spending hours alone, huddling in temperatures that dipped below -15C, the teen appeared to be in decent shape," Sharp said. "He was conscious, slightly hypothermic and appeared to have some frostbite."

The two remaining bears were still in the area, Zebedee said.

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About an hour later, searchers in a small boat from Coral Harbour took the teen and rescuers to shore.

"It's quite amazing that things turned out the way they have," said Sharp.