Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Rescue workers in the Canadian Arctic say they have saved a teenage hunter who drifted overnight on a small ice-floe, having apparently been attacked by a polar bear.

The BBC reports a search crew who found the Inuit youth say he shot and killed a mother bear in self-defence, orphaning her two cubs.

The teenager, 17, had been hunting with an older man when their snowmobile broke down.

He set off for help but was stranded on the 15m ice floe when it broke away.

By the time paratrooper jumped on to the ice from a Hercules transport plane to rescue him, the floe had drifted at least 45km.

The teenager is receiving treatment for mild hypothermia and frostbite in the town of Coral Harbour, on Hudson Bay. His companion was also picked up suffering from hypothermia.