“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. He had phoned his wife mere moments before the mishap and told her to expect him home in an hour, but now the sealer found himself stranded and alone on an ice floe. There he spent the next two nights, miles from shore and armed only with a flotation suit, a five-gallon gas can, and his faith.
Man on the Ice is the autobiography of Rex Saunders, a man of faith who grew up on the rugged shores of the Great Northern Peninsula. 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. He was born in St. Leonard’s, now known as St. Lunaire-Griquet, on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. His family moved to Main Brook, White Bay, where he attended school as a boy. He began making his way as a fisherman at a young age, both on shore and off, plying his trade on the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts. Over the years he has worked as a fisherman, woodsman, and sealer. On May 4, 2009, Rex Saunders went missing after his sealing vessel capsized; he spent two nights alone on the ice floes off the northern Newfoundland coast. His story of survival went national after he was rescued from the ice approximately fifty-three kilometres from his home. He is married to the former Irene Earle. They have five children and six grandchildren and currently reside in St. Lunaire-Griquet, Newfoundland.

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