Five months later, Shadow returns home in time for the holidays

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — After spending almost five months in the northeast B.C. wilderness, Shadow finally makes his way back home to his family in Oklahoma. 

Missing since July, Shadow was found by Liard Hot Springs park operator who then narrated Shadow’s story to Fort St. John locals Christine Sutherland and Bruce Kosugi. 

Sutherland and Kosugi coordinated with the Shadow’s owner – Jeremy Barton – to work out how to get him home. 

After looking at multiple options, Sutherland flew to Winnipeg for the meet-up. 

Unfortunately, Barton was unable to meet-up with Chrisitne before her flight to Fort St. John. He told Energeticcity.ca: “Due to the bad weather, I wasn’t able to meet Christine. 

“We had got a hotel room that we were going to meet at before her flight and then I was going to stay the night there with Shadow. 

“But she ended up having to catch her flight, since I got caught in bad weather so he was there for a couple hours by himself before I finally got there.” 

Before making the trip back home to Oklahoma, Barton expressed: “It was a tough adventure to get him back, but now that he’s back, I’m excited to take him home so he can be reunited with my son.” 

Barton shared he would be driving through North Dakota back to Oklahoma to surprise his sons. 

“They have an idea. They knew [Shadow had] been found and we’re going to try to get him  back but I did not tell them exactly when he was going to be back,” Barton shared.

Barton’s boys were extremely excited to have Shadow back. Jeremy’s youngest, who is the technical owner of Shadow, was ready to give up Christmas presents if it meant Shadow could come home. 

Now that Shadow is home, Barton shared: “They were both extremely excited and they’re both really happy to have him back. They were snuggling with him the first night.” 

When asked if he had a message for Christine, he said: “I just [want] to let her know how completely grateful my family is to her for doing all that she did to really help us out.

“It’s not something I see commonly these days. I feel like there definitely needs to be more altruism going around, and I believe that [people] like Christine and Bruce, they’re both really good examples of the type of people that the world needs.” 

To the park operators, “I’m very thankful for them [for] keeping my number on. 

“They didn’t just throw my number away and they were attentive to finding him and capturing him,” he said.