Junior hockey coaching legend Ernie "Punch" McLean has been found alive after being missing in B.C.'s northern wilderness for four days.

The 77-year-old, who guided the New Westminster Bruins to two Memorial Cup titles in the 1970s, was reported missing Sunday afternoon.

RCMP say McLean was discovered in a remote area east of Dease Lake where he was last seen near a gold claim he was working on close to the B.C./Yukon border.

McLean was located at 5:00 p.m. Thursday evening and has been airlifted to the Dease Lake Medical Centre for examination. His exact condition is unclear though rescuers are hopeful he will make a full recovery.

Investigators say he was surveying a property on Turnagain Lake on foot when he disappeared.

"The area is mountainous and remote, only accessible by all-terrain vehicle and by air," Cst. Craig Douglass said in a release.

Douglass said Mclean was not carrying any food, weapons or provisions for an overnight stay when he was last seen.

Provincial Emergency Program (PEP) has been brought in to assist the search, as well as police dog services, B.C. Park Rangers and the B.C. Forest Service.

Mclean, who was inducted into the BC Hockey Hall of Fame in 2006, coached 16 seasons in the WHL with New Westminster and Estevan Bruins.

Family friend Greg Neeld hailed McLean as a survivor.

"He is a very tough man, a very tough guy," he said.

"He had a plane accident and lost his eye when he was a younger guy and he came through that and his toughness and his family's toughness that will carry him through."

After leaving hockey, Mclean became involved in the mining community in northern B.C., and owns a mining company.

Bruce Judd, director of the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame that welcomed McLean as an inductee in 2006, said he's concerned about his friend of four decades.

"I'm very worried nobody's heard from him since Sunday," Judd said in an interview.

"Hopefully, Punch comes through."

Judd last spoke to McLean about two months ago, when the 1975 WHL coach of the year was just getting ready for his northern trip.

Judd called McLean a great hockey mind and said he still has a lot to offer the game in B.C.

"His knowledge of the game and the way he mentors kids to get to the NHL. I believe that's one of his biggest attributes," he said.

"The Stan Smyls, the Barry Becks, he's got a hundred to go with those, he helped them immensely."

Smyl played for New Westminster from 1975 to 1978. He ranks third all-time in scoring for the National Hockey League's Vancouver Canucks.

Beck, like Smyl, was a member of the Memorial Cup winning team in 1977. He played in the NHL for the New York Rangers and the Los Angeles Kings.

McLean never coached in the NHL but, Judd says, he sure thinks he could have.

"He's always believed he should have been a coach in the NHL and he told us that at the Hall of Fame dinner too," Judd said.

"We always have a lot of NHL general managers there. So he got his point across."

Judd says McLean was ecstatic when he found out he was being inducted into the hall and he described him as a charismatic individual with a tremendous personality.

Like Judd, Dennis Coates has known McLean for decades.

The Kamloops lawyer says it's not unusual for McLean to be up north prospecting. Coates says his old friend is by no means frail.

"He's a pretty experienced guy. He's a guy that back in the 1970s crashed an airplane in the middle of winter and we actually had a wake for him," Coates said.

"And then he walked out of the bush the next day. So he's a survivor."

With files from The Canadian Press