Gaston Schaeffer carefully navigated his black pickup truck along the icy Alaska Highway, turning down a narrow, gravel pathway and rumbling along for several kilometres toward the road he had graded just a few days earlier.
A reclamation specialist for an environmental firm, he had some familiarity with this region in northeastern British Columbia, a mountainous landscape with forested valleys, serrated peaks and glaciers. The Redfern Lake area, located roughly 225 kilometres northwest of Fort St. John, is popular for hunting and fishing. It’s no longer an operational site for oil and gas, meaning some roads once maintained by oil companies have deteriorated, with deep mud holes and overgrown vegetation.
On this day in late November, Mr. Schaeffer had just picked up John Tattrie, a site supervisor at a well abandonment company in Alberta, to tour the area where Mr. Tattrie would soon start work on his own project. It was shortly before noon when they spotted the figure in the distance. “What would somebody be doing on this road?” Mr. Schaeffer said. Then he remembered images of the man on the missing posters plastered around town. He turned to Mr. Tattrie: “I bet you it’s that kid.”
That kid was Sam Benastick, a 20-year-old from Kamloops who had been reported missing more than five weeks earlier when he failed to return home from what was supposed to be a 10-day camping trip in Redfern-Keily Park off the Alaska Highway.
A massive search and rescue operation was launched, with trained volunteers, search dogs, drones, helicopters and ATVs scouring every kilometre of this terrain before official search efforts were suspended in late October.
But there he was, ambling toward the truck, propping himself up with two walking sticks. He had a cut-up sleeping bag tied around his feet and legs and wore ratty gloves, a backpack and a lightweight jacket that did little to shield him from the -20 C weather of recent days.
Mr. Benastick’s safe return has garnered international attention, with many heartened by the outcome after hope had begun to fade with the passing weeks.
It has also sparked much curiosity as to how he survived for 50 days in such unforgiving conditions with little food and no winter gear as search crews combed the area around him.
The Globe and Mail spoke with those familiar with search efforts to find Mr. Benastick, piecing together what is known about his disappearance and safe return.
And while Mr. Benastick is not ready to revisit the ordeal through an interview, he provided The Globe with exclusive details about his weeks in the wilderness, including being stalked by a wolf, sustaining on rations of peanut butter and sewing up a deep wound with fishing line.
Sam Benastick is one of three siblings raised by parents who instilled in them early a love of sport and the outdoors. The two boys and a girl all played hockey and enjoyed camping, hiking, skiing, fishing and motorbiking.
Mr. Benastick departed for Redfern-Keily Park on Oct. 7, loading into his vehicle a red dirt bike, an 85-litre backpack, a tarp and other camping supplies, according to police. His family last heard from him on Oct. 8 and reported him missing on Oct. 19 – two days after he was supposed to have returned home.
Visitors to Redfern-Keily Park are warned about grizzly and black bears, a lack of potable water and weather conditions that can change rapidly. They are also advised to be prepared with emergency equipment, as the park is isolated, with great distances to traverse.
On Oct. 20, John and Joe Benastick arrived in the unincorporated community of Pink Mountain, in the Rocky Mountain foothills, not far from the park. They pulled open the heavy wooden door to the Buffalo Inn, a lodge and work camp frequented by those in the oil and gas industry.
Mike Reid, the inn’s laconic general manager, checked the father-son duo in and gave his usual spiel: Here is the WiFi password. The restaurant is open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. We’re on a well system; don’t drink the tap water.
“And then I asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ ” Mr. Reid recounted in an interview at the inn. “John, the father, said, ‘We’re here to try to find my son.’ ”
Mr. Benastick’s mother, Sandra Crocker, arrived the next day, along with other family members. Search and rescue crews mobilized, with more than 120 trained volunteers from Fort Nelson, North Peace, Kamloops and other jurisdictions joining Mounties, Canadian Rangers and local residents in the effort.
The BC Search and Rescue Association said ground search teams were deployed on foot and all-terrain vehicles, multiple helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
They used search dogs and drones, covering hundreds of square kilometres of challenging terrain over roughly 3,500 search hours.
During the day, the Benastick family joined official search efforts, often focusing on more obscure areas. Ms. Crocker posted any information they had in local hunting and fishing Facebook groups, imploring members to keep an eye out for her son. At night, they retreated to the Buffalo Inn, where they gathered in front of a fireplace in a living-room-like common area, poring over the next day’s plans.
Mr. Reid, a father and grandfather himself, grew close to the family. He offered them discounts on their accommodations and some free breakfasts and dinners, telling them to put their money toward search efforts.
An online fundraiser started by Mr. Benastick’s sister, Kate Benastick, raised $42,200. A description stated that the money “would go towards hotel, campsites, fuel, and food for the crew and volunteers, any money left over will be donated to search and rescue.”
Timber Bigfoot, a member of the Prophet River First Nation, whose territory extends to the park, volunteered with local search and rescue, telling search managers he had lived off the grid in the Redfern Lake area for several years and walked these trails his whole life.
Mr. Bigfoot said he spoke with Ms. Crocker every day for more than a week at the height of the search, and every few days for a period afterward. He asked what gear Mr. Benastick had, to which she replied a hatchet, some fire starter, two jars of peanut butter, two small tarps and a backpack, he said.
“I said, ‘Does he have warm winter gear?’ and she’s like, ‘No, he had stuff for hiking and some rain gear. He left his down jacket and warm stuff at home,’ ” he told The Globe.
Mr. Bigfoot said he has many questions about what happened to Mr. Benastick, including how he could have missed those searching for him.
“If a helicopter goes by four mountains away from me, you’ll still hear it across four different valley ranges. We went up and down every valley range,” he said. “And to try to survive 50 days in -20 degrees, and to say that you did that with a jar of peanut butter, it’s almost impossible.”
As Halloween approached with no new leads, official search efforts were suspended. The family stayed behind for two more weeks, until Remembrance Day, when they, too, decided to go home. Before departing, they hugged staff members at the inn, some of whom were crying.
The general manager relayed a story that his boss had recently shared, about a two-seater bush plane that had crashed in the Yukon wilderness in the winter of 1963. The inexperienced pilot and his passenger not only survived the impact, but endured 49 days of sub-zero temperatures before they were rescued.
“It’s going to happen to your son,” Mr. Reid told Ms. Crocker.
Gaston Schaeffer and John Tattrie drove up to the hiker, now certain he was the young man who had been reported missing. They quickly loaded him into the pick-up truck, both workers noticing how weak and exhausted he looked.
Mr. Schaeffer offered the young man his lunch – pasta with carrots, potatoes and hamburger patties – and called 911, confirming to a dispatcher Mr. Benastick’s identity and agreeing to drive him halfway toward Fort Nelson to meet an ambulance. Mr. Benastick picked at the food, seeming to have trouble swallowing.
Mr. Tattrie checked his fingers for frostbite. He quizzed the young man, both in hopes of finding out what had happened to him and to keep him awake and alert. Mr. Benastick said little, and took a few seconds to tell the men his name, Mr. Tattrie said.
He told the workers that he had found shelter in an old well site, where a collapsed steel culvert offered some protection from the elements. His bear spray had leaked onto his head and clothing, and gotten into his eyes. He rationed peanut butter – “seven scoops a day, he called it,” Mr. Tattrie said – and at one point, caught and ate a bird, possibly a woodpecker.
“He said he lived with a mouse for a few days, and the mouse was his friend. Then the mouse died and he couldn’t stand to be in that spot anymore, and he couldn’t bring himself to eat it, so he left,” Mr. Tattrie said.
“He didn’t tell me a whole lot on the way. He was very, very tired, and very relieved. He was just happy it was over, more than anything, I think.”
Mr. Tattrie eventually got a phone number for Mr. Benastick’s father, who sounded stunned to hear the news.
“I was a little bit worried, like what the heck? Then he phoned back about 10 minutes later and said, ‘May I hear my son’s voice?’ ” Mr. Tattrie said. He would learn later that Mr. Benastick’s father wanted to confirm it wasn’t a prank call.
Mr. Benastick was taken by ambulance to Fort Nelson General Hospital, where he was met by family. Upon discharge two days later, the family stopped by the Buffalo Inn, where Mr. Reid had already heard the news.
“It’s just amazing. You’re going to enjoy Christmas,” he told the family, before insisting on group photos at the same fireplace where they had spent 24 days going over search plans.
Mr. Tattrie and Mr. Schaeffer both headed over to the inn. Mr. Benastick said little during the short visit, but offered a few more details. He told Mr. Reid that he may have hallucinated at some point, having remembered seeing snowmobile tracks but no snowmobile. He also said he was chased by a wolf, which disoriented him.
“What the hell did you survive on?” Mr. Schaeffer asked. Peanut butter and three potatoes, he recalled Mr. Benastick saying.
“Of course, I’m sure John and I had a whole lot more questions we wanted to ask, to poke and prod, but at the same time, being mindful of the fact that he had just gotten out of the hospital and probably didn’t want to be berated by 1,001 questions,” he said.
With Mr. Benastick now at home, declining to speak publicly as he recovers from both physical and mental injuries, his story continues to fuel online chatter and even skepticism. Some members of the very Facebook groups focused on finding him have even called the ordeal a stunt, claiming without basis that he had access to his vehicle but chose to camp outside.
Mr. Benastick shared his own account of events with The Globe this week, in part to address such misinformation.
After arriving at the Redfern Lake trailhead on Oct. 7, Mr. Benastick spent two nights in his car, owing to his late arrival and to rain, his mother wrote in an e-mail. On Oct. 9, he rode his dirt bike toward Redfern Lake, making it partway there before setting up camp. Muddy and wet conditions the next day prompted him to forgo the trip and turn back.
“After riding back for a bit, it got late, so he parked his bike off trail, left some supplies, covered them, and walked to a nearby stream to set up camp, intending to head out the next morning and get back to his car,” Ms. Crocker wrote.
“He was walking towards the stream and a wolf appeared behind him and began to follow, separating him from his bike. The wolf stalked him and he tried to scare it off with bear spray but the spray malfunctioned. He was able to fend it off with his hatchet and fled up the mountain. However, he fell into a gully and injured his legs.”
Those injuries included severe spraining and cuts to his right ankle, she said. When he ran out of bandages, Mr. Benastick resorted to sewing up one deep wound himself, using fishing line and a needle from the survival sewing pack in his first aid kit.
After settling in for the night near a creek, Mr. Benastick awoke injured and disoriented, unable to regain his bearings. He stayed in this location for two weeks, healing his legs and starting fires in an effort to signal for help, Ms. Crocker said.
When weather conditions worsened, he moved lower into the valley and built a shelter in a dried-up creek bed. He stayed here for about three weeks, tending to his leg and starting fires.
As he ran out of peanut butter, Mr. Benastick headed in the direction he believed was east, walking in a straight line through deep snow for five days, in hopes of reaching the Alaska Highway. He turned at the sight of snowmobile tracks, which led to a plowed trail.
“He followed this trail until he was found by two workers,” Ms. Crocker wrote.
Chris Mushumanski, president of the BC Search and Rescue Association, said available information suggests that Mr. Benastick managed to survive on a “very challenging amount of food” even if he had been in a warm and safe environment. But while the circumstances may seem to defy logic, he said the factors that determine whether a person survives can be incredibly complex, and such outliers do exist.
Search and rescue crews have not spoken with Mr. Benastick’s family since his recovery and are curious to learn more, he said.
“We use a lot of statistics to justify why we’re searching in areas that we have, and so missing-person calls like this, that are outside the norm, we oftentimes like to see if we can get some details so that we can better search in the future,” Mr. Mushumanski said.
“However, we’re also an organization that works with confidential information and fully respect the privacy of folks. So, there is that dance as well.”
The inn’s general manager is aware of online chatter about Mr. Benastick’s ordeal, including from those who cast doubt on the remarkable story of survival.
“Who cares? I don’t,” Mr. Reid said. “The kid’s with his parents again. The parents got their child back.”
