Not heard from in weeks, police still search for two missing Fairy Creek advocates

Weeks after family and friends last heard from them, police on Vancouver Island are still searching for two missing Fairy Creek blockade advocates.

Gerald ‘Smiley’ Kearney was reported missing on Oct. 21, and Kevin ‘Bear’ Henry last spoke to family on Nov. 27, and was reported missing on Dec. 11.

“It was (their) best friend that filed the missing report with police,” Henry’s aunt, Rose Henry, told Global News on Thursday.

“A lot of people, you know they fell in love with Bear because (they) have a very happy outlook on life.”

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Both Kearney and Henry have been involved in the Fairy Creek blockade — the largest civil disobedience act in Canadian history. More than a thousand people have been arrested in southern Vancouver Island area in an effort to stop old-growth logging.

Victoria police said Wednesday that Henry, 37, may have travelled to the Fairy Creek area in a brown, 1980 Dodge Royal camper with the B.C. license plate NB206H.

Henry is described as Indigenous, six-foot-three-inches tall and about 300 pounds with a heavy build. They have short, brown hair and green eyes. Henry is known to wear skirts and leggings.

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Kearney, 61, was last seen on Oct. 13 around 10 a.m. in the Fairy Creek Watershed area walking between two encampments along the Granite Mainline Forest Service Road.

He is described as a Caucasian male, five-feet-four-inches tall and 210 pounds with shoulder-length gray hair. Two searches — one assisted by a police dog and a drone — have failed to locate him.

A backpack belonging to Kearney was found in the area earlier in the investigation and he is known to live alone on a boat.

Anyone with information on Kearney’s whereabouts is asked to contact Sooke RCMP at 250-642-5241, and anyone with knowledge of Henry’s whereabouts is asked to call Victoria police at 250-995-7654, extension 1.