In Brief

Tourists Stranded on Canadian Ice Floe Rescued

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Baffin Island is the world's fifth largest island.
Baffin Island is the world's fifth largest island. Its frigid waters are nowhere to get stranded on an ice floe, however. (Image credit: Jason Briner)

Adventure travelers in the remote Canada wilderness woke up to a surprise on Tuesday morning (June 25): The ice floe upon which they'd been camping was floating out to sea. Oops.

The 30-mile-long (about 50 kilometers) ice floe soon began breaking apart, off Baffin Island in Canada's far northern Nunavut territory, and the Royal Canadian Air Force had to abandon at least two attempts to rescue the 10 tourists and 10 guides due to bad weather, NBC News reported. The military had to make do with airlifting them some food and supplies, including life rafts, according to the Guardian.

Luckily, the story ended happily, when the group was rescued by two military helicopters on Wednesday evening after spending nearly two days drifting in the frigid ocean.

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Douglas Main
Douglas Main
Douglas Main loves the weird and wonderful world of science, digging into amazing Planet Earth discoveries and wacky animal findings (from marsupials mating themselves to death to zombie worms to tear-drinking butterflies) for Live Science. Follow Doug on Google+.