Tourists Stranded On Ice Floe In Canadian Arctic Rescued After Spending Several Days At Sea

Twenty tourists looking to "get away from it all" in the Canadian Arctic went a little farther than expected earlier this week when they found themselves stranded on a chunk of ice floating out to sea.

The group had been a part of polar tourism company Arctic Kingdom's "Great Migrations of the Northwest Passage" program, a portion of which involves camping on an ice floe north of the Arctic Bay in Nunavut.

When a 3-mile section of the ice they'd been camping on unexpectedly broke off sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning, however, the travelers were set adrift and floated 7.5 miles offshore. CNN reports that Canadian rescuers airdropped survival kits to the drifters Tuesday. Though the floe began exhibiting signs of deterioration, none of the group was ever in imminent danger, according to CNN.

Per a release from Arctic Kingdom, all the tourists and staffers aboard the ice were rescued Wednesday morning. No injuries were reported.

Helicopters had to be routed to the floe from hundreds of miles away in Eureka on Ellesmere Island, adds The Guardian. Ten hunters who also had been trapped on the floe managed to escape Tuesday afternoon after the ice split and their section drifted closer to land.

Earlier this month, a group of Russian scientists in the Canadian Arctic required an emergency rescue after the ice floe on which their research station had been built began melting underneath them.