After some confusion about whose jurisdiction last weekend's snowmobiling tragedy came under, the B.C. coroner's office has announced it will investigate the death of Alcan 200 racer Jeffery Peede.

The North Pole, Alaska man died last Saturday after the snow machine he was riding hit a guard rail near Three Guardsmen Pass, just north of the B.C./Alaska border, approximately 32 kilometres into the race.

The first responders on the scene, including the Haines, Alaska ambulance service, reported that Peede showed no signs of life when they arrived, and likely died on impact.

"They said he never had a pulse or nothing," Alaska State Trooper Joshua Bentz told the Star yesterday.

But Peede was not officially pronounced dead until his body reached the Haines medical clinic.

Because the official pronouncement was made in the United States, the B.C. coroner did not initially see the death as within his jurisdiction.

"The coroner actually stopped (the RCMP officer from Haines Junction) from going to the scene," Bentz said. "He was literally getting into his truck when he got the call."

Shane Demeyer, the regional coroner for northern B.C., said any such decision would have been made by the chief coroner, based just outside of Vancouver.

Demeyer was told earlier this week that he would be investigating the incident.

"We're going to be speaking to everyone," Demeyer said of his job now.

"The police and ambulance attendants on the scene, the other racers, and the race organizers."

The confusion, Demeyer said, may have been due to the fact that the Coroner's Act was amended less than two years ago to give coroners jurisdiction to investigate a death regardless of where the person actually dies.

"Now, if the incident occurs in our jurisdiction, we investigate, even if the death is outside (the jurisdiction)," he said.

The Alcan 200 is the last snowmobile road race in North America.

Road races have been outlawed in the United States, so even though the Alcan is organized in the U.S., it is run solely on the Canadian portion of the Haines Road.

Demeyer said it is possible his recommendations coming from the investigation could touch on the subject of banning or restricting future races.

"It's too early to say," he said of the possibility of a Canadian ban, "but that is certainly something we'd look at."

Coroner's recommendations are not legally binding. Acceptance of them is at the discretion of the relevant government body.

Last Saturday's tragedy was the first time anyone has died in the Alcan 200's 40-year history.

Riders in this year's race said the conditions were the worst any of them had ever seen.

Visibility was so poor, the racers actually stopped at the halfway mark and voted on whether to go on or not.

They did not know at the time that Peede had died.