'I looked up and I couldn't believe my eyes'
Mushroom picker walks back to camp after four days and nights lost in wilderness
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Tired, dehydrated but no worse for wear except for hundreds of bug bites, a Czech mushroom picker is safe after spending four days and nights lost in the wilderness near Reid Lake.
Marie Neumann, right, puts her arm around fellow mushroom picker Kristyna Hajkova at their campsite near the Cameron River on Monday. Neumann, from the Czech Republic, walked into the camp Friday night after having been lost in the bush for four days and nights. - John McFadden/NNSL photo |
Marie Neumann, 32, walked out of the bush and into the mushroom picking camp doubling as a search and rescue command centre, located 55 kilometres out on the Ingraham Trail, at about 10 p.m. Friday to the astonishment of her fellow pickers. She had not been since Monday afternoon when she went off in the bush to retrieve her backpack.
Neumann had been the subject of an intense search by RCMP (including their canine unit and a drone), Yellowknife Search and Rescue volunteers, Civil Aviation Search and Rescue, Canadian Forces 440 Transport Squadron and a Transport Canada Dash 8 plane.
Neumann, told Yellowknifer on Monday she did not panic and never felt her life was in danger.
"I feel absolutely normal," she said.
"I was not injured. I think I just lost orientation when I was looking for the backpack. Then it started to rain and get dark."
Neumann said she slept in the bush on the ground, where it was warm even when it was raining. Then, of course, there were the bugs.
"I am not used to the bugs," she said. "It's disgusting but not dangerous."
Neumann's friend and fellow picker Kristyna Hajkova, also from the Czech Republic, said she was in disbelief when Neumann walked into camp Friday.
"I looked up and I couldn't believe my eyes," she said. "I felt really happy. I just hugged her and was laughing and crying at the same time."
She and fellow picker Lukas Koubek were made honourary members of Yellowknife Search and Rescue once the search was over.
Neumann said she picked mushrooms last year, near Wrigley.
She said she did not realize the area near Reid Lake is just as remote. She thought she would eventually reach the highway and just hitchhike back into Yellowknife but as she tried to find her way back she said she would run into lakes, swamps or cliffs and try to make her way around them.Neumann said she never lost hope that she would eventually make her way back to her campsite.
"I was very happy when I could hear people at the campsite," she said. "I knew I was getting close when I could see the burned forest. I was shocked to see the RCMP here when I walked into camp. It was shocking that there were so many people involved in the search. I was a bit ashamed there were so many people looking for me."
Neumann said she saw a helicopter that was looking for her many times but she was not able to get the attention of anyone onboard.
"I was waving my arms," she said.
"I could see it but they couldn't see me. I tried to go onto rocks where they could see me but it is hard for them."
Neumann said she could not estimate how far she trekked through the bush in total. Despite the fact she had no food, she said she never got hungry.
She said RCMP let her use a satellite phone once she returned to her camp to let her family back in the Czech Republic know she was alive and well.
Neumann and her fellow pickers are looking for morel mushrooms in areas burned by forest fires last year. The burned area is where the rare mushrooms grow best. Indeed there are two campsites out along the Ingraham Trail, set up by people who buy mushrooms from the pickers. By Sunday, Neumann was back among them looking for morels.
She expects to head to B.C. in the next couple of days, adding she wants to express her deep gratitude to all the people who looked for her and were concerned for her safety.
