It’s been five weeks since anyone has seen Ryan Shtuka.
The 21-year-old man, who would’ve celebrated his birthday last week, has been missing since February when he left a house party at Sun Peaks resort in British Columbia.
His parents haven’t given up the search for their son.
LISTEN BELOW: Heather Shtuka speaks with Peter Watts about the search for her missing son
On Saturday, his mother Heather told the Alberta Morning News, except for a few days, all of the searches for Ryan have been organized by her and her husband.
“We’ve had no real form of search except for two days that Kamloops search and rescue came out. So everything else that we have done has solely been by our design based on what we’re learning each day as we go along.
“We’re hoping that today there’s some areas that there’s been some snow melt that’s happened, and we’re hoping just to hit those areas with a large number of people.”
But it hasn’t been easy, as neither of them have any search or rescue experience.
“Not one of us have been a search and rescue expert, never even knew how to do any of this stuff. So to begin with, it was a huge learning curve for all of us and painfully each day we learned what we could be doing better.”
“So even though we’ve touched every part of this resort, how well have we really touched it? What were we searching for at the time?”
Heather says the terrain has also presented a challenge in their search for Ryan, and despite their best efforts, there’s still no sign of him.
“That’s the toughest part, is that there is one last sighting of him leaving the house that night and there has been nothing else since then that can be verified. Certainly, we’ve heard lots of stories about him going one way or the other, but there’s been no sightings before and no sightings after.”
Ryan Shtuka is described as Caucasian, 6 feet, 180 pounds, with blonde hair and brown eyes.
The Shtuka family is offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to his whereabouts.
If anyone has any information regarding his whereabouts, contact the Kamloops RCMP Detachment at 250-828-3000.
– With files from Amy Judd