After being reported missing on October 19, Sam Benastick has finally been found. According to authorities, Benastick was “found alive this week in the remote wilderness of northwestern Canada, where he had been lost for more than six weeks” (CBS News).

Benastick was going on a 10-day camping trip to Redfern-Keily Provincial Park, known for “lush alpine meadows, forested valley bottoms, serrated peaks, glaciers, waterfalls, and large valley lakes” in the northern reaches of the Rocky mountains” (The Guardian).

It was said that Benastick spent the first half of his trip in his car and hiked towards the mountainside creek to camp there for 15 days, then moving down towards the valley, building a camp and shelter.

When Benastick did not return after 10 days, his family became worried and filed a missing persons report. The police began a long and wide search for Benastick, with “helicopters and a larger crew…More than 50 people, and search dogs” (The Guardian) to support the search, but the search ended at the end of last month when police could not find the missing man.

Sandra Crocker, Bendstick’s mother thanked the volunteers for looking for her son, but that family would not give up, as the “family refused to accept that Benastick had succumbed to the worsening conditions” (The Guardian).

After 50 days, two park workers were shocked to discover a man walking on the road, who happened to be Benastick. The man appeared in rough shape. “When he was found, the hiker was using two walking sticks to support himself and had cut his sleeping back to wrap the fabric around his legs for warmth” (CBS News). The workers put Benastick in their truck and fed him sandwiches It was said that Benastick survived very harsh weather conditions as the temperatures at the park, ” were frigid while he was missing, at times dropping to -20 degrees Celsius, or -4 degrees Fahrenheit” (CBS News).

It is said that Benastick is recovering in the hospital, but is in rough shape, as his mother posted a photo of him, “bandaged in a hospital bed” (NY Post). Benastick is suffering from frostbite and smoke inhalation, as police begin to get more information of how he went missing for 50 days.