A cat that went missing in a remote area of northeastern B.C. is finally back home with its family in Oklahoma, five months later.

The reunion this week was made possible by Fort St. John residents Christine Sutherland and Bruce Kosugi, who helped shepherd Shadow the cat after he was found near Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park last month.

“That woman is the closest thing to a saint that I’ve ever witnessed,” the cat’s owner Jeremy Barton said of Sutherland, while speaking to CBC Radio West‘s Sarah Penton from North Dakota.

The reunion was “a dream come true,” Sutherland said.

“Everybody who’s a pet owner, like most people, their worst dream come true is not just losing their animal, but not knowing,” she said. “The not knowing is horrible.”

Shadow went missing in July while Barton was travelling through northern B.C., and was assumed to be lost for good before park staff finally spotted the cat in November.

Sutherland and Kosugi were at the park at the time, and after hearing about Shadow’s story they offered to drive the cat roughly eight hours from Liard to Fort St. John. They then arranged to fly him to Winnipeg using five years worth of Air Miles that Kosugi had amassed.

“We’re Rotarians,” Sutherland said. “Service above self … you go looking for places that you can help.”

Barton drove north from Oklahoma to meet them halfway in Winnipeg, but even that final stretch was a white-knuckle drive. A prairie blizzard and whiteout driving conditions left him stuck for hours in deep Minnesota snow.

“I just thought it was another patch of, you know, like maybe a foot deep snow,” he said.

But, in fact, there was three to four feet of snow, he said.

“Fortunately there’s a police officer that was able to help me and then we were able to get a hold of the tow truck to come pull me out.”

The snafu delayed the reunion and prevented Barton from meeting Sutherland in person before her flight back home to Fort St. John.

Staff at the hotel where Sutherland was staying stepped in to care for the cat while Barton fought the weather and made it across the border.

When the two were finally reunited, the moment was quiet if not a little cautious.

“Unfortunately wasn’t quite as heartfelt,” Barton said. “I think he was a little like, ‘Who’s this guy again?’”

But that changed by bedtime.

“Before I lost him, he liked to rub his head on my scruff,” Barton said. “He got up in the bed and started doing that again.

“I think he was like, ‘OK, I know who you are now.’”

Barton says Shadow appears thinner but is still healthy after the experience.

“He’s fit… got some muscles,” Barton said. “I’m assuming he managed to survive somehow, probably off rodents or living off trash, who knows?”

While Barton, Sutherland, and Kosugi still haven’t met in person, they feel close to each other.

“It’s a great way to acquire family,” Sutherland quipped. “To be able to help, it was like a gift.”

---

Subscribe to CBC’s Fort St. John Weekly for a round-up of the best news and stories from B.C.’s Peace and Northern Rockies.