It’s been almost a week since Gordon Solloway disappeared.
The 74-year-old Kelowna man left his Hollywood Road South home last Thursday, around 7:30 a.m., but never returned.
“It’s horrible,” said Solloway’s daughter, Sheri. “You can’t imagine.”
Sheri Solloway said her father, once an avid hunter, went on a short hunting excursion in the James Lake area, east of Kelowna, when he went missing.
“To sight his gun in, some hunters that he hunts with built him blinds that were close to the road,” she said.
“His mobility wasn’t good . . . he wouldn’t have gone far, he wouldn’t have gone far from his truck.”
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RCMP plus search and rescue crews from across the Okanagan scoured the area for four days, both on the ground and from the air, covering about 4,200 square kilometres, and still there has been no sign of the senior or his truck, a 2012 medium grey Dodge Ram.
“It’s like he got sucked into the air,” his daughter told Global News. “Every scenario goes through your mind.”
Solloway’s wife, Sheron Solloway, said her husband of 54 years was only supposed to be gone for a few hours.
“I need him home. I need him to come home,” an emotional Sheron Solloway said. “I can’t leave him up there.”
Surveillance footage from a Petro-Canada gas station near Highway 33 and Dougall Road, where he fueled up before heading into the bush on Thursday morning, shows Solloway wearing a blue-and-white plaid jacket and a camo hat.
A short time later, he was captured on a home security camera heading up Goudie Road.
There was also a sighting of Solloway the same day he went missing at the Damfino gravel pit area off of Big White Road.
While RCMP have talked to that eyewitness, family members are hoping to speak with him as well.
“We are asking that gentleman to please come forward, to contact the family because we would like to know a little bit more,” Sheri Solloway said.
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The family is also pleading with anyone who lives in the Goudie, Philpott or Big White Road area to check their security cameras.
“Any little bit will help us to get us in the right direction,” Solloway’s daughter said. “We have people out on horseback, we have people on ATVs, we have people coming forward with drones.
“We want to be in the right area, if that’s possible.”
With the search now officially suspended, family and friends are ramping up their efforts, hoping for any clues that will lead them to their loved one.
“We are not going to stop. No, how can you?” Sheri Solloway said.
RCMP said they don’t believe foul play is involved and while the family has considered all kinds of scenarios, his daughter said she has a gut feeling.
“I think my dad is over the bank somewhere,” she said.
A possibility that has the family begging for answers.
“Please help us,” Sheron Solloway said.
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