A Saskatchewan father who drunkenly lost his two young daughters outside in a snowstorm has been handed a three-year jail sentence for their deaths.

Christopher Pauchay, 25, pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death after his daughters -- three-year-old Kaydance and one-year-old Santana -- were found buried in snowdrifts in January of last year.

The prison term comes despite calls from an aboriginal sentencing circle that Pauchay be spared jail time and be allowed to heal in his community.

But in handing out the sentence, Judge Barry Morgan said that Pauchay hadn't taken responsibility for the deaths and didn't seem to understand how his actions had led to the tragedy.

Pauchay, who had been drinking heavily on the night of the deaths, had taken the girls out of his home on the Yellow Quill First Nation reserve in the early hours of Jan. 28.

They became separated in the -50 C weather, and the girls froze to death.

Pauchay also suffered severe frostbite and hypothermia but survived after being found by a neighbour.

The Crown noted that Pauchay already has a long criminal record, with more than 50 convictions. The three-year jail term lands on the lower end on the Crown's request, who were seeking a maximum sentence of five years in jail.

Pauchay's lawyer had argued that sending the father to prison would only hurt his family.

On Thursday in the Rose Valley, Sask., courtroom, Pauchay told Judge Barry Morgan that his new infant daughter has kept him sober and given him a new lease on life.

After the girls' deaths, Yellow Quill First Nation Chief Robert Whitehead announced plans to establish an addiction treatment centre on the reserve, which has been plagued by alcohol abuse.

The Saskatoon Tribal Council is still reviewing the plans for the treatment centre.

Elders in a 24-member sentencing circle recommended that Pauchay not be sent to prison.

Pauchay's stepmother Jo Anne Machiskinic earlier told a sentencing circle she was angry that it took such a tragedy for the reserve to own up to the drinking problems it faces.

"I felt at the time, why does it always take something this bad to make people open their eyes?" Machiskinic said last month.

She said she is concerned about the depression Pauchay faced in the months following his daughters' deaths, and she is not mad at him about their deaths because he did not intend to hurt them.

With files from The Canadian Press