A hiker was found alive this week in the remote wilderness of northwestern Canada, where he had been missing for more than six weeks, authorities said.
On October 19, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported Sam Benastick missing after he failed to return from a backcountry excursion in Redfern-Kiely Provincial Park, a remote environment renowned for its alpine tundra and harsh mountainscape in British Columbia’s northern Rockies. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, two men noticed Benastick on their way to work on the park’s Redfern Lake path on Tuesday. When they recognized Benastick as the missing hiker, they transported him to the hospital.
Benastick informed police that he spent a couple of days in his car at the start of his backcountry journey before trekking to a hillside brook and camping for 10 or 15 days, according to the RCMP. At that time, the hiker stated that he relocated to a different place farther down the valley and established a camp and shelter in a dried-out creek bed. Benastick eventually made his way to the road, where he encountered the Redfern Lake trail personnel, more than six weeks after embarking on his quest.
“Finding Sam alive is the very best outcome.” Corporal Madonna Saunderson, an RCMP spokesperson in British Columbia, said in a statement that they feared this would not be the outcome after all the time he had been missing.
Benastick, 20, endured harsh conditions. According to Canadian broadcaster CBC News, the hiker found himself using two walking sticks for support and had cut his sleeping bag to wrap the fabric around his legs for warmth. According to BBC News, a CBS News partner, temperatures in the park reached as low as -20 degrees Celsius, or -4 degrees Fahrenheit, during his absence.
“Those are very difficult conditions for really anyone to survive in, especially [with] limited supplies and equipment and food,” Prince George Search and Rescue search manager Adam Hawkins told the BBC.
Mike Reid, the general manager of the inn near Redfern-Kiely Provincial Park where Benastick’s family stayed as search efforts got underway in October, told CBC News that Benastick was in “rough shape” Tuesday. But he is expected to recover.
Authorities launched a large search for Benastick after receiving a missing person complaint, but they called it off at the end of October, according to BBC News. If Benastick’s health improves, police hope to learn more about what happened to the hiker and why he was missing for so long.