Hiker who survived 50 days in northeast B.C. woods released from hospital
Inn owner who spoke to Sam Benastick says 20-year-old said he got lost after being chased by a wolf
The 20-year-old man who survived 50 days in the woods of northeastern B.C. has been released from hospital, CBC News has learned.
Mike Reid, the general manager of the Buffalo Inn in Pink Mountain, B.C., said Sam Benastick and his family stopped in to see him on their way home after being discharged from care in Fort Nelson.
Benastick's parents and brother stayed with Reid for several weeks while searching the nearby Redfern-Keily Provincial Park, where Benastick was last seen before being reported missing.
"I don't know the full story," Reid said in an interview with CBC News Friday morning. "But he did say that he did get lost because he was getting chased by a wolf."
There is intense interest in Benastick's story, with news of his survival making headlines worldwide and Reid saying he has done more than a dozen interviews in the last two days.
CBC News has not spoken directly to Benastick or his parents since he was found, and the family has asked for time and privacy as he recovers from his time in the woods.
However, Reid also said it didn't seem Benastick had been expecting conditions in the park to be as difficult as they were, although he was well-equipped for his ordeal.
"He does love the outdoors," he said. "So he was prepared, and he lasted. He had one jar of peanut butter left in the last 20 days, and that's how he survived."
Benastick had set out on his trip on Oct. 7, which was supposed to last for 10 days. He was reported missing Oct. 19 and could not be found until Nov. 26 when, according to police, he flagged down two industrial workers headed to the Redfern Lake trailhead, which was also the last place he had been seen.
He was reportedly wearing a sleeping bag wrapped around his legs for warmth and supporting himself with two hiking sticks before nearly collapsing and being taken away in an ambulance.
In a statement on Wednesday, RCMP only provided a few details of what they believe happened, saying Benastick told them he stayed in his car for a couple of days, then walked to a "creek, mountainside" where he camped for 10 to 15 days.
After that, police say, he "moved down the valley and built a camp and shelter in a dried-out creek bed." He was found Tuesday morning when he flagged down the two men and was taken to safety.
But questions still remain about how Benastick went missing, why he could not be found as search crews scoured the area, and how he survived as snow fell and temperatures plunged below -20 C in the remote mountain park.
In an email to CBC News on Friday morning, RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Brett Urano said the police force was no longer investigating the file "as there is no criminal element" and would not be sharing any more information about what happened.
'There's no society, there's no technology'
To get to Redfern-Keily Provincial Park, most visitors first go to Fort St. John, 1,200 kilometres north of Vancouver along B.C.'s Highway 97.
You then need to drive another 250 kilometres along the Alaska Highway, turning onto a service road that takes you 80 kilometres west into the wilderness.
Timber Bigfoot, the land and environment manager and member of the Prophet River First Nation, whose territory extends to the park, was tapped by search and rescue crews to help try to find Benastick because of his knowledge of the area, which he describes as one of the more isolated places in B.C.
"There's no society. There's no technology. There's no civilization," he said.
Among the dangers are "large grizzlies" and "lots of wolves," he said, but the biggest challenge facing someone spending an extended period of time in the area is the environment itself.
"One day it's +2, +3, the next day it's -20," he said. "It can go from rainy to snowing within hours."
But Bigfoot said despite the vast expanse, he had a hard time believing Benastick wouldn't have been aware of the search underway.
"No matter where he was, he would have heard all the helicopters," he said.
But, he added, with the abundance of wolves and bears, an encounter with wildlife could have thrown him off track.
Adam Hawkins, a volunteer from Prince George who was involved in the search, described "incredibly challenging winter conditions" where more than 15 centimetres of snow fell in a single day in October.
"It's incredibly remote," he said, describing a mix of gentle hills and steep mountain terrain within the "massive" search area.
It was these sorts of warnings that worried Benastick's mother, Sandra Crocker, when her son started planning a trip to the region from their home in Kamloops.
Crocker spoke to CBC Daybreak Kamloops host Shelley Joyce on Nov. 1, after the official search for Benastick had been called off, but while she, along with his father and brother, were still in the area looking for clues.
She said Benastick was feeling somewhat listless after returning from a trip to Europe and started talking in mid-September about taking a fishing trip to the remote location.
"He wanted to catch Arctic grayling," she said in the interview, saying he reassured her that there were lots of hunters and hikers in the area should he run into trouble.
But troubles with his vehicle delayed his departure and he didn't set off until early October as the season had already started to turn. She said she texted him on Oct. 7 as he got to the landing of the Redern Lake trail, with plans to return 10 days later, on Oct. 17.
"I said, 'If you don't come out and text me … I'm going to come look for you,'" she told Joyce.
When Oct. 17 came and went, she says she started to worry, and by the 18th, she had decided to hit the road to go look for him, bringing Benastick's brother and father, as well, all the while expecting to get a text while she was on the road.
They arrived on Oct. 19, and after finding Benastick's car still at the trailhead and speaking to some hunters who said they'd seen no sign of her son, Crocker called 911 and reported him missing.
The first RCMP release about Benastick went out on Oct. 21, describing him as an "avid hiker/camper" who had brought with him a tarp, an 85-litre backpack, and other camping supplies.
Those supplies, Crocker said, included a hatchet, a camp tarp, warm winter clothes and "a lot of peanut butter."
"He didn't go unprepared," she said in the Nov. 1 interview. "He's super smart ... He doesn't give up easy."
'A miracle': search volunteer
Benastick's original plan, his mom said, was to take the Redfern Lake trail, an approximately 80-kilometre trail accessible by ATV or snowmobile. Crocker said her son had borrowed her dirt bike for the trip and that searchers managed to find one track that would match its tires, but it didn't give them any solid clues.
She suspected Benastick might have changed plans once he arrived and the search radius was extended to other locations.
"It's excruciating, a very difficult trail," she said. "We think that he turned around and came to the landing because it was just too rough of a trail."
But where he went from there, she had no idea.
According to the B.C. Search and Rescue Association, more than 120 volunteers were involved in efforts to find Benastick, amounting to more than 3,500 search hours which included ground teams, ATVs, "multiple helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, trained search dogs, drones, and other resources," which covered "hundreds of square kilometres of challenging terrain."
"It's an amazing environment and climate to try to survive," Bigfoot said, adding he'd love to speak with Benastick about what he went through and how he kept going.
"I think it's a miracle, and I congratulate him for being such a tough person."
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