British Columbia’s Conservation Officer Service usually focuses on the fate of wildlife, but officers found themselves deployed on a human rescue mission this week.
In a Twitter thread Friday, the service said members had been gearing up for a caribou closure patrol when they were notified by Quesnel RCMP about a miner who had become stranded about 26 kilometres from a plowed road by a winter storm.
The 60-year-old man had headed out to his claim eight days earlier, and was four days overdue to come back.
The BCCOS said he was able to shelter in a trailer, but had no method of communicating and was unable to drive his jeep out due to deep snow.
A trio of COs were able to locate the man, who had been trying to get out on a “very old and unreliable snowmobile that likely wouldn’t have made the trek,” the service said.
The man was uninjured, but the BCCOS said the situation could have become “dire” if he wasn’t rescued, as another snowstorm was forecast to be on the way.