Inexperienced mushroom picker lost 3 days in Canada's (massive) Northwest Territories. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mushroom-picker-missing-update-1.4193930

As a backgrounder, massive fires have cut through the Northern boreal forest in the last couple of years. Massive, as in impossible to fight unless human habitation was threatened. The burned areas are natural mushroom incubators, and the seasonal money is very good for pickers. Fort McMurray is along the arc of one fire that continued on for months. I suspect we will be seeing more of these stories.

Mushrooms don't have a ton of calories but if they're plentiful you would have plenty to keep you going! You could do worse than survive on thousands of dollars worth of morels. I hope they find her safe and sound.

Day 4 and she still hasn't been found.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/missing-woman-mushroom-picker-yellowknife-1.4194675

Reports indicate that the bush is very dense and difficult to search. She had left her backpack behind while picking, and that was found the second day, so she has minimal gear at best. And, she is not familiar with this terrain at all. There was a big rainstorm a couple of days ago -- potentially good for water sources, potentially bad for hypothermia. This does not look good. Hope the searchers catch a break.

Edit: Weather in Yellowknife is fairly hot and sunny right now, with daytime temps around 27C and night temps around 15C. If she finds water and stays put she might make it.

Also: I came across an interesting article about the whole morel mushroom picking "industry." http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/where-the-wild-things-are/#photo

She's been found safe. YAY!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/missing-mushroom-picker-safe-1.4196236

Yeah, she walked into the RCMP command post last night. Wow. Guess she has more bush smarts than anyone realized. Good for her. No further details available right now, but I'm glad she made it.

That's about 200km from my brother's fishing lodge. I've done some bush hiking in that area, at times you are walking into a wall of bushes so thick you can't past your arm and your feet are either stepping on roots or into the holes between the roots. It could take an hour to hike a 100 yds. Or you could be walking on granite ridges covered in lichen. Black bears, moose, caribou, wolves, eagles, wolverine are quite common in the area but the black flies will probably eat you first.

Usually, after 3 days SAR is looking for a body instead of a person. I'd say she was very very lucky.

Awesome! I love seeing a good outcome. I hope we hear more of what she did to make it out.

Follow up: here's the lady's description of her four days in the bush.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nwt-mushroom-picker-story-1.4197175

Danger: Critical comments following!

She should have stopped instead of moving so far

She did not have a signaling capability

She had little to no survival equipment

She separated from her buddy


The positive:

She did keep her head very well

She had skill and confidence

She kept track of direction and had knowledge of the surrounding roads and towns

The environment and weather were in her favor

A small pack with basic equipment and supplies, including signaling, would likely have resolved this in the first day.