Was it bad luck to name a black cat Shadow?
The family cat, owned by Jeremy Barton, his wife, and their two sons, went missing while Barton was heading home from the far north of British Columbia, vanishing into the forest just like his namesake.
In a provincial park called Liard River Hot Springs, Shadow slipped out of the car and into the wild, forcing Barton into a frantic search effort in the remote northern Rocky Mountains to no avail.
The Oklahoma City native had to come home and tell his two sons that Shadow was gone, before spending an agonizing 5 months without any knowledge of his whereabouts.
“Everybody who’s a pet owner, like most people, their worst dream come true is not just losing their animal, but not knowing,” said Christine Sutherland, a Fort St. John resident in BC who would eventually help reunite Shadow with his humans. “The not knowing is horrible.”
Sutherland, and another native of the area named Bruce Kosugi, managed against the odds to find Shadow in Liard River Hot Springs after 5 months of the animal living off the land. Despite Kosugi being highly allergic to cats, the self-described “Rotarists” offered to drive the cat 8 hours back south to Fort St. John to their home.
CBC News spoke with Sutherland and Barton for two separate reports, but didn’t mention how they were connected. How ever it happened, Sutherland then offered to fly Shadow to Winnipeg, where Barton arrived last week after a 16-hour drive from Oklahoma.
LOST CATS COMING HOME:
- Beloved Lowe’s Store Cat is Finally Found in Neighboring State After Security Footage Reveals Clues
- Man is ‘Overwhelmed’ as His Bengal Cat is Returned From 16-year Absence After a Phone Call
- Cat Missing for 7 Years is Reunited with Family in a ‘Christmas Miracle’
“That woman is the closest thing to a saint that I’ve ever witnessed,” Barton said of Sutherland, while speaking to CBC Radio. Sutherland, for her part, said she was thinking of Barton’s two young boys, who had cried for days at the news their cat was lost.
“This cat meant a lot to those two boys. And it’s so neat that they’re going to see him before Christmas.”
For the hard-nosed Shadow, who’s crossed an extreme length of the North American continent, it ought to be a lesson about staying in the light where his family can see him.
SHARE This Christmas-Time Homeward Bounding Across Canada And America…