A cougar scream was the last thing Heather Thompson wanted to hear when she was lost at night in the middle of the woods. Huddled at the base of a tree and shivering with cold, she clutched her 20-month-old baby Erika inside her jacket close to her body and held a small knife. At her side was her dog Monty, a Rottweiler shepherd cross. She didn’t know where she was but after listening to the cougar she knew it was close by.
“Monty was barking and growling and wanted to go fight it,” said Thompson. “I could hear it moving quietly and it was probably within 20 feet. I wouldn’t let Monty go and eventually it left.”
Thompson is the chanterelle mushroom picker who was reported missing on the evening of October 24 and who’s disappearance triggered a large-scale search and rescue effort in the area around Duck Lake, about 15 kilometres east of Powell River.
Thompson said, in an interview with the Peak, that losing her way amazed her because she’s been picking for 16 years. “I’ve always come out across from my vehicle or at my vehicle every time. I’ve never used a compass. I was raised in the bush.”
She said she doesn’t feel so embarrassed though because it’s happened to old-timers as well.
The terrain, with its ridges, swamps and dense forest made it easy for her to get turned around.
“I had been picking to the left and down and over from the van and I saw a truck drive by, so I thought I was right by road,” she said. “By 1:30 I had a hundred bucks worth of mushrooms and I was on my way out of the bush and everything was fine.”
But everything was not fine.
“Where my van was parked is one of the densest parts, so there’s no way you can see the road.”
She started to panic. She began climbing up the ridge to a high point to find a better vantage point.
“I should have paid more attention. I could hear the river and my van was parked at the top,” she said, “but I didn’t put two and two together.” She tried to make her way to where she saw the truck, but was so turned around by that point she couldn’t find it. Little did she know at the time, but she was only a 15-minute walk back to her van.
And then to make matters worse, she started to lose daylight.
“I tried to light a fire, but my matches got wet and my lighter was half dead,” she said. “It had been raining that afternoon and everything was soaked.”
Instead she decided to hunker down and wait. Tucking Erika into her coat to keep her warm, Thompson didn’t anticipate how cold it would be.
“All my muscles were going into spasm because I was shivering all night and then all the next day. I’ve never been that cold.”
She closed her eyes for only 10 minutes that night.
“I heard a big crash in the bush below,” she said. “I heard a siren. I yelled and knew they were looking for me but I couldn’t be sure which direction it was coming from and was afraid to travel in the dark. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep.”
At daybreak Thompson started out again. She walked about four hours and ended up at the north side of Stewart Lake.
“We heard a helicopter and got down to the marsh so they could see us. I was waving my red mushroom bag and yelling. The helicopter kept going but I was still screaming and waving. Then I heard someone yelling.”
The man yelling was Ron Fuller and he signalled to the helicopter where Thompson was. Thompson and Erika were airlifted to hospital. Although cold, she wasn’t treated for hypothermia.
“My clothes were so wet I could wring them out…Erika was fine.”
Thompson said she feels lucky her experience turned out the way it did because it could “have been really bad.” After looking at maps of where she was she said she was going in completely the wrong direction and would have had to spend another cold night in the bush if she hadn’t been found.
“I got a few bruises, scratches and slivers and a whole new faith in the support system working for me,” she said. “I’m sure all of you were praying for our safe return. That’s what kept me going. Thank you doesn’t seem like enough.”
Thompson, not deterred by her ordeal, was back picking mushrooms only a couple days after. However, now she carries a survival pack and a compass.
“I never thought this would happen to me,” she said. “I’m not going to be so cocky and confident because anything can happen.”
