Missing Hunter
But if he wasn’t lost, the 60-year-old trapper was the only man across several thousand acres of dense bushland yesterday who was certain he wasn’t. Dore walked out of the bush early Wednesday afternoon more than three days after he disappeared while on a hunting trip with his son-in- law Dan Ingram and a friend Bob Good. When he finally made it to safety more than 50 volunteer searchers were combing the timber, swamp and muskeg in the area where he was last seen. As far as they were concerned he was lost.
Dore’s adventure began early Monday when he struck out on a hunting trip from the camper he and his partners were using as a base camp on the Merton Lake Road near the Hart Highway. He was to have returned to the camper later that morning-and when he failed to rendezvous his friends became alarmed.
The elderly hunter, apparently little the worse for his experience, told how he had shot a cow moose shortly after he struck out alone. He butchered the animal and began to blaze trees in the vicinity so he could later locate the cache, when he returned to pack it out of the bush.
Unaware that he. had damaged his compass in a fall he struck out on an incorrect bearing and quickly lost-his way in the dense trackless bush. In his wandering he fell over a tree and twisted his left ankle and knee which made travel painful and difficult and he realized he would have to stay out overnight. Unfortunately he had left a pack containing matches with the moose cache and he could make only a-crude shelter for warmth,
Temperature that night dropped below freezing and he could not sleep but when he began to move the next morning he took a bearing off the sun, and began his long’ trek back to civilization. “Then I realized where I was but I knew I had a long way to go. His injury finally became so painful he used his rifle for a crutch and his progress was so slow Tuesday he estimates he made only four miles. By Tuesday evening he had made his way to a large lake he still doesn’t know.- its name and again bedded down for the night.
“It’s a good thing I’m used- to sleeping out in the cold;” the experienced hunter boasted shortly after his arrival back at camp, “a man could have died out there,” His experience and knowledge finally paid off however and he slept soundly Tuesday night despite below freezing temperatures.
He struck off early Wednesday morning and estimates he made about eight miles when he finally came out on a logging road where he was picked up by a passing logger. He was taken to a nearby logging camp, where he was fed before returning to his own camp, The experience, which would have tamed a lesser man’s enthusiasm for the outdoors did nothing of the sort for Mr. Dore however.
“I feel strong as every” he boasted to the search party on hand when he arrived at camp, limping slightly as he forced his injured leg, “And I’ve still got to pack my moose out,”