A man lost in the Manitoba wilderness for five days said an eagle and a prayer to his grandmother gave him the strength to make it out alive.

Christopher Traverse, 24, survived for days in the Interlake bush battling a snowstorm and freezing temperatures without food, water, or matches.

He walked for approximately 12 hours a day through waist deep snow and built shelters out of spruce tree branches every night.

"Kept strong, didn't let my emotions take over me," he said at news conference in Gypsumville on Thursday. "Didn't break down or something like that. I didn't break down until yesterday [when he was found]."

Ventured further into the bush

Traverse went missing Friday when he became separated from a group of snowmobilers traveling from Anderson Lake south to Gypsumville.

A search ensued, but a severe weekend snowstorm hampered search efforts. Ground and air crews have been combing the area during the past several days.

Wednesday evening, five days after he went missing, RCMP received a phone call from a man who said he was Christopher Traverse, and that he was at St. Martin Junction on Hwy. 6.

RCMP sent a cruiser car and picked him up - and boy did he have a story to tell.

Traverse became disoriented while snowmobiling with family members who were ice fishing on Anderson Lake. The family lived on the Lake St. Martin First Nation. After a day of fishing, the group was heading to Gypsumville.

Traverse said he thought he was traveling south down a river system. He wasn't. Instead, he was driving his snowmobile north, further into the Manitoba bush.

64 kilometres later, he ran out of gas. So Traverse went to work and built a shelter using his snowmobile, twigs, and branches.

That's were he spent the night - the night of a brutal snowstorm that shut down highways and blanketed the area with up to 30 cm of snow, according the CTV Skywatch weather team.

Then he started walking for up to 12 hours through waist-deep snow. He could see and hear the search planes flying overhead, looking for him.

"The thought if him lying in the bush -- it almost killed me," said his mother Loretta, who joined her son at the news conference.

But her son was doing anything but just lying there - he would dry his socks to keep his feet from freezing - and he took off a layer of pants so he would have a dry pair for the nights. During the day he would walk during the day with his long underwear covered by ski pants.

Survival skills learned through TV

Traverse credits his survival skills to a television show called 'Survivor Man' on the Outdoor Life Network. The show documents one man's trials as he tries to survive on his own in some of the world's most uninhabitable locations.

Traverse also said he was followed by an eagle overhead, how stayed with him ever since his first night alone in the bush.

"There was eagle that followed me from the first night," he said. "It was watching over me."

By the fifth night, however, grim reality began to sink in.

"It was getting on the fourth night, and I was worried I wasn't going to make it," he said through tears. "The last night, it was pretty cold. I prayed to my grandma, and I got warm -- and I made it out the next day. I walked 13 hours."

When he finally saw the Devil's Lake communication tower, he knew there was a highway close by.

He found the highway, and flagged down a Greyhound bus. The bus drove him to the bus stop at St. Martin Junction. That's where he called RCMP.

Medical staff took at him, and declared Christopher Traverse is in good health. He has been reunited with his family.

"It gives a different perspective of life, for sure," he said.

With a story from CTV's Rachel Lagac�