Christopher Pauchay has never publicly explained what happened last January on the Yellow Quill First Nation. (CBC)

A Saskatchewan man who pleaded guilty in October to criminal negligence causing death after his two young daughters froze to death says an accident was to blame.

Christopher Pauchay has never publicly explained what happened last January on the Yellow Quill First Nation.

The two girls, ages three and one, were found dead in a snowy field on the reserve about 280 kilometres east of Saskatoon following a night when their father was in charge of them.

He didn't testify and has refused to talk to the media outside court.

However, in a recent interview with CBC News in his lawyer's office in Saskatoon, Pauchay insisted that what happened to Kaydance and Santana Pauchay was all an accident.

He did not elaborate, however.

The Crown argues Pauchay was drunk and what he did — losing the lightly clad girls in temperatures that felt like -40 C with the wind chill — was akin to child abuse.

Father coping with help of elders

Pauchay didn't want to talk much about what happened that night.

"I'm sorry. I can't answer that. I don't want to answer that question," said Pauchay, who is no longer in custody and is awaiting sentencing.

Today, he said, he's coping with the help of elders.

"It just makes you feel so much better. Your spirit is high. It's a good feeling," he said.

Pauchay no longer lives with the girls' mother. He misses his daughters, he said.

He also said he still struggles with alcohol and that he has suffered enough.

"I don't believe in punishment. Forgiveness is better than anything else. Punishment doesn't do nothing," he said.

The Crown is calling for prison time, while the defence wants a sentencing circle so that elders and other people from the community can advise on an appropriate sentence.

The judge will decide what will happen next at a hearing in Rose Valley next month.