Nearly a year after couple loses wedding ring in snowy Alberta, husband returns with metal detectors

Transcript

The odds were never in Drew Huskey's favour, but that didn't stop the St. Louis, Mo. man from trying to find his wife's wedding ring eight months after she lost it on the side of an Alberta highway.

"I just told myself that you miss 100 per cent of the shots that you do not take," Huskey told As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner.

"I figured, hey, this is a shot worth taking."

Huskey persevered and he ended up finding the $13,000 ring this month — with the help of some Canadian metal detectorists. 

Huskey and his wife, Emily Yang, were on vacation in Alberta last October, when they got stuck in a traffic jam on the Icefields Parkway near Jasper National Park on a snowy day.  

When Yang got out of the car to go to the bathroom, the snow was up to her knees. But when she went to brush it off her clothes, her ring came off. 

Huskey says they spent what felt like hours looking, but the snow kept on falling. When their hands got "insanely" numb and the cold was too much to handle, they decided to give up. 

"It was a pretty tense moment. She was heartbroken," said Huskey. "She didn't want me to feel bad. So we basically just kind of quietly moved on."

Almost immediately, Huskey started thinking about when he would return to try and find the ring. He took note of the exact spot where Yang had lost it.

"I told myself I will be back when the big thaw — the summer thaw — happens."

With the warm weather in Alberta several months away, Huskey started to think up a plan. He looked into the idea of using a metal detector, and that's when a colleague told him about a group called The Ring Finders. 

Huskey found a man in that group named Syd Kanten, who lived about 200 kilometres away from where Yang lost her ring. 

"When he got a hold of me I said, 'Well, gee whiz that sounds like an interesting story, " Kanten told the Washington Post. "Once the snow melts, I'll go out there."

Huskey decided not to tell his wife about his plans to return to Alberta to look for the ring. 

"I really wanted to make it a surprise," he said. "Not only that, but if I didn't succeed, then it would probably make her feel even worse."

Instead, he told Yang he was going on a work trip north of Kalispell, Mont.

"She never actually looked up Kalispell ... but if you go 20 miles north, you're in Canada."

Huskey returned to the spot where Yang lost her ring with Kanten and his son Tyler Kanten. Two of Huskey's friends who live in Calgary also helped. They used metal detectors to search the area. 

They were out there for at least two hours when the batteries on Tyler's metal detector died. He told Huskey that he was going to get some fresh ones and a cup of coffee. 

That's when they found the ring. 

"[Tyler] started walking up to the side of the road, right about where we had parked our car eight months previously, and he just happened to look down and saw something shiny. He bent down, grabbed it, came up, and said, 'Hey, is this the ring we're looking for?'"

"I was just overcome with joy and I started just celebrating and, you know, screaming ... until I realized, I'm from the Midwest. There aren't any real high mountains, and the air is really thin right where we were at, so I got a little light-headed and had to sit down and put my head between my knees for a minute," Huskey said. 

Huskey filmed the moment that he presented the ring to Yang at their home in St. Louis. He posted the video to YouTube.

"It was heartbreaking to see my wife cry like that, but it was also heartwarming knowing that the sentimental value of that ring had never ended with her."

Written by Katie Geleff. Interview produced by Ashley Mak.