Yesterday at work we had a report of a missing teenager, who, without going into too many details, had wandered out on to the tundra with intentions of self-harm. Bear in mind it's minus 35 and we only have about four hours of watery daylight. He was reported missing at 11am, just after the sun came up, and when they still hadn't found him at 1:30, we knew we only had about half an hour of daylight, and we were looking for a very cold boy.

I had so many people to worry about - his brothers had also gone off looking for him, his parents were waiting at home for updates, the guys I work with were driving around in trucks and on snowmobiles looking for him. I really wanted to go get a snowmobile and go look too - but someone had to answer the phones and relay radio messages to the parents and the forming search parties. I was kind of praying in the back of my mind, I realized, a repetitive prayer was going on, occasionally I tuned into it and said or sang a few words out loud while I was listening for the phone and the radio, and looking out the window at the frozen bay.

Eventually he was found safe but cold, and everyone came back to the detachment for coffee and chocolate bars and big sighs of relief.