The Saga of the Missing Hiker

In my last post I told about the horrible weather on August 15th at York Factory. That night as we gorged on real food and sat by a warm stove, we were aware that there was a solo hiker still struggling towards York Factory. He was a 29-year-old man from Norway who was traveling with his two dogs, hiking the circumference of Hudson Bay and hoping to get to Alaska. By the time we went to bed, we realized that he was not going to arrive that day. The weather was too horrendous and the hour was too late. We hoped that he had hunkered down somewhere and would arrive in the morning. But who showed up the next morning? His dog, Togo. The York Factory authorities took a picture of Togo and sent it to Norway to make sure it was the right dog. They received confirmation that it was indeed one of the dogs of the missing hiker. His other dog, according to Facebook, had been killed by wolves. Togo gave us hope that the hiker would soon show up. But the day wore on and there was no sign of Steffan Skjottelvik. By the second morning of our stay in York Factory, the authorities were worried. A helicopter arrived at the  otherwise very quiet grounds, a couple drones were buzzing in the sky, and there were several armed police people prowling around the woods. By that evening there was a full scale manhunt going on. The problem though was that the land surrounding York Factory is very boggy, buggy, and treacherous. There is an ever-present danger of polar bears, wolves, and weather. Local indigenous guides were called in to aid in the search, and they said it was one of the most difficult searches they have been part of in the last 30 years. It is not uncommon to sink to your waist in bog while trying to maneuver near the river. We had spent a nice day romping with Togo, but our minds were on his master, somewhere out there. We left York Factory by boat on August 17th and there was still no sign of the hiker. When I got back to Minnesota, I scoured the internet for news, but it wasn’t until three days later that it was reported his other dog (the one reportedly killed by wolves) had returned to their last point of contact in Fort Severn, about 300 km to the southeast. After an extensive search, on August 21 Steffan’s backpack and gun were found on the banks of the Hayes River.  The next day his jacket was found in the same area, and on August 24 his body was discovered in the water not far from York Factory. He had apparently attempted to swim across the Hayes that day that we struggled so hard to paddle. Again, the wind, the rain, and the waves nearly did us in, and they proved to be too much for Steffan. We were ecstatic to finish our trip, but our elation was definitely dampened by worry about Steffan. The two events will forever be linked in my mind.