Searchers have been close but not successful in finding missing woman

By Susan McNeil

The person picking mushrooms with missing White Fox resident Lois Chartrand was in contact by radio for a length of time but to no avail, said a close friend of Chartrand.

Maureena Schreiner has been worried sick about her best friend ever since she found out Chartrand was missing last Thursday, having fallen out of eyesight in the dense brush along the Hanson Lake Road.

Even with the fear of the worst outcome growing, Schreiner said she can’t quit.

“I kept saying, ‘I can’t go back,’ but then I go back, because how do you stop?” she said.

Chartrand and her husband, Lorne Terry, are well known in the world of people who glean the harvest of the wilderness and turn it into a living.

“Their passion was picking mushrooms all over the north and I had no idea where they went. Lorne would keep the spots secret,” Schreiner said.

The couple has done this for many years and is very familiar with the wilderness.

Chartrand and her husband pick mushrooms, fiddleheads and wild berries as an income source, selling what they gather to high-end restaurants in Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Terry was in Saskatoon selling previous pickings when Chartrand and another friend went to a secret location where they knew they could reliably find more.

Getting to the location requires driving in a part of the way, then using an ATV to go onto a trail and then picking in the brush.

“It was the first time ever they had taken a two-way radio,” Schreiner said. “So then they’re picking and apparently Lois had a tendency to wander to the best patch.”

At the start of this particular area, the terrain is open and then it is solid bush before opening up a bit more.

After noticing he could not see Chartrand, the picking partner called her on the radio.

“She said, ‘I can hear you,’ and he said, ‘Come to the radio, follow my voice,’ but she kept disappearing. He got on the four-wheeler and said, ‘Can you hear the bike?’ ‘Yes, I can hear the bike.’ ‘Come to the sound.’ She was, or she thought she was, but she kept fading,” explained Schreiner.

The partner went to the road and honked the horn, which she could hear but could not track down. He even took the muffler off and kept honking but by this point, Chartrand was not responding.

After two hours, the partner went to the main road and flagged down a vehicle, letting the driver know the police needed to be called.

Police started searching with a drone but a storm that evening knocked the drone out of the sky.

“They didn’t have hail there, but they had rain and wind and the drone wasn’t working that good,” Schreiner said.

One of the searchers decided to try the radio once more at 6 a.m. the following day and managed to make contact.

“The RCMP who were there had the radio. He said, ‘Are you OK?’ ‘Yes, I am.’ ‘Are you safe?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ ” she said.

The officer instructed her to stay put and wait for rescue.

That’s the last contact anyone has made with Chartrand, and Schreiner admits that after six days, the search is becoming a recovery mission as opposed to the rescue despite the contact.

“She could have travelled from the day before, but they had a pretty good idea of where to look. We thought it was going to be a piece of cake,” Schreiner said.

Despite being well enough to pick mushrooms, Chartrand is not without health issues and after suffering a stroke. She has also speech issues that are coupled with a naturally low voice.

Schreiner said that about 10 people are searching on weekdays but when the weekend came, she was amazed at the response from across Saskatchewan.

In particular, she noticed the skill and professionalism of Dale Hintz of Yorkton.

She noted that the searchers came from everywhere — La Loche, Estevan, Regina and Saskatoon — and has been flabbergasted by the response from people with no connection to the missing woman.

“I was just amazed. I was there because I love her, but they were there because that’s what they do,” said Schreiner. “You hear of this on the news. You see it out there but being right on the front lines, my whole perspective of the people that do this for a living has changed.”

In some ways, the response has restored some faith in humanity when she sees the caring and time the searchers are putting into finding Chartrand.

The rescue continues and police are asking for those that are familiar with the area to help but only after making sure they are equipped with things like bright clothing, good shoes, outdoor gear, water and food.

All volunteer searchers are required to check in at the search base three kilometres off of Highway 106 (the Hanson Lake Road) about 33 kilometres north of Smeaton.