Two Millinocket men were rescued on the Penobscot River on Saturday after getting stuck on the ice in a motorboat.

Hunter Cote, 18, and his uncle, Jason Hartley, 42, were trying to cross the river around noon for a hunting trip when their 14-foot aluminum boat grounded on thin ice, game wardens say.

The ice was too thin to walk on, yet too thick to break with the boat. Still, the motorboat was towing a canoe, which Cote used to get to shore.

Cote started to pull Hartley in with a rope, but then it broke. Hartley drifted down the river and into rapids before getting stuck in another ice floe.

Game wardens Andy Glidden and Ron Dunham responded to the scene with a hovercraft, which can move over ice.

The wardens rescued both hunters, who did not need medical treatment, according to a news release from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Both Cote and Hartley were wearing lifejackets.

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