New York/Vancouver - Villagers in Canada's far western province, British Columbia, spent 12 days engineering the rescue of two horses stranded by two metres of snowfall, Canadian media reported Sunday.

The horses, an eight-year-old gelding and three-year-old bay mare, were discovered by villagers on Mount Renshaw before Christmas, trapped and starving in a valley, the Vancouver Sun reported.

A group returned to the horses with hay bales on their snowmobiles, then spent the following days digging out a kilometre- long path in minus-35-degree Celsius temperatures, the newspaper reported.

The horses were brought out by 11 pm Tuesday, two days before Christmas, and spent the holidays recovering in a barn.

It was not clear who owned the horses.

Kent Kokoska, British Columbia's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, told the newspaper the horses were "hundreds of pounds underweight" but were stable. dpa