Photo: The Canadian Press

Quebec provincial police say they've found the body of one of the five missing snowmobilers from France in the province's Lac-Saint-Jean region.

Police say the body was found about two kilometres from where police found submerged snowmobiles and other personal items on Thursday, but they did not identify which of the missing men was found.

Four tourists are still unaccounted for as authorities continue to search on land, on the water and from the air.

For reasons that remain unclear, the group of nine snowmobilers, including their Quebec guide, left the safety of the marked trail through the woods and ventured towards the icy expanse of Lac-Saint-Jean, where the ice gave way somewhere between St-Henri-de-Taillon and Alma.

Two of them managed to get a third person out of the water and alerted authorities. Their guide, 42-year-old Benoit L'Esperance of Montreal, was recovered from the freezing waters and died later in hospital.

The five missing French snowmobilers were identified by police as Gilles Claude, 58, Yan Thierry and Jean-Rene Dumoulin, both 24, Julien Benoit, 34, and Arnaud Antoine, 25.