A group of tourists camping on an ice floe in far northern Canada had become stranded when that floe broke off and started to drift in the Canadian Arctic. All of the tourists were able to return to land on Wednesday, according to ABC News.
The 20 tourists, including two Americans, had planned on spending a week on the ice just north of Arctic Bay, Nunavut, Canada. The diverse group that included tourists from Jordan, France and Australia was led by a guide company called Arctic Kingdom. Arctic Kingdom specializes in taking tourists and film crews into the area where both whale and polar bear migrations can be observed.
Graham Dickson, Arctic Kingdom's president and chief expedition officer, told ABC News that he thought irregular weather patterns helped lead to the ice floe becoming detached and heading toward sea.
"What was unique right now is there was a supermoon a couple of days ago," Dickson said. "There was a very large tide that combined with a strong wind from the south. As a result, we believe it raised a lot of ice with the tide and then the wind pushed some very large ice inlets - as much as 30 miles in size - out away from shore."
The group was never in any real harm as they had enough supplies with them to last for a week of camping on the floe. Still, being trapped on an ice floe is a situation that should be approached with caution.
"There were moving and whenever you're on moving ice you have to take precautions because if it keeps moving or if it were starting to break up, then that could be dangerous," Dickson said. "So you need to anticipate what could happen."
After a change of direction in the wind the ice floe went close enough to land that the tourists were able to disembark. While the tourists are no longer floating on their way to Greenland they aren't exactly back in civilization yet.
"They're all safe on shore but they do still need to be extracted from where they are to a local area that's more accessible," Major Steve Neta of the Royal Canadian Air Force told ABC News. "Right now, they're on a shoreline where they're not able to get out from there. We're still planning to go in with a helicopter and extract everyone to a town nearby."
Weather conditions have prevented rescuers from picking up the group so far but they are safe and have plenty of supplies.
