Man on the Ice

“This is going to be a good day out in boat,” said Rex Saunders, a sixty-six-year-old sealer from St. Lunaire-Griquet, NL, before heading out to the icefields on May 4, 2009. Later that day, the cold and unforgiving waters of the Atlantic Ocean nearly claimed another victim after his boat capsized. His battle with the elements made national headlines when this everyman-turned-hero stared death in the face while waiting for a miracle he knew would come. Rex Saunders is the second-eldest of Fred and Olive Saunders’s ten children. His story of survival went national after he was rescued from the ice approximately fifty-three kilometres from his home. He and his wife Irene currently reside in St. Lunaire-Griquet, Newfoundland. Canadian author, Newfoundland, Atlantic Canada, sealing, survival.