They had a day to walk openly on any tracks, even right past or through Gillam, before RCMP locked down the Gillam area. Then after that they could have hidden more and taken the more difficult track. But the further they moved away from planes, trucks and helicopters, the easier it would have been for them to move. Their behaviour shows they intended to survive and get away into [edit: the more hospitable parts of] Canada. There was never any logic in going further north if they planned to survive this. Interestingly they seem to have now trapped themselves on a peninsula there at York's Landing.