Amy Anonby survived more than 24 hours lost in the woods of the Cariboo, coming back with a remarkable survival story involving a unicycle, a bear, a helicopter, and dozens of searchers.
The 22-year-old woman had been headed alone to Mahood Lake on Aug. 25 to meet friends at a cabin, but the directions from Google Maps sent her down a decommissioned logging road, where an errant baseball-sized rock shattered her oil pan, leaving her unable to drive her car without overheating it. She was stranded in an area no one expected her to be.
“I had no cell service,” Anonby told CTV News in an exclusive interview at her Surrey home. “I realized no one knows where I am and only a few people saw me.”
She had packed her belongings in Vernon, where she’d interned for the summer, so she had camping gear, scrapbooking paper and calligraphy pens to make signs, and plastic packaging and duct tape she tried to fashion into a makeshift oil pan; it failed.
She spent a chilly night in the car where it was, startled by a massive bear that approached her car the next morning, coming within a few metres and refusing to leave until she “just hit the window until he left.” With only a bag of marshmallows, some microwave popcorn and half a bag of salted pumpkin seeds, she knew she’d have to be smart.
“I had noticed the tire tracks on the road were undefined and shallow, so it was clear no one had been here for a long time,” she said. “I pushed my car into the middle of the road and put the side mirrors on top to reflect any light and surrounded it with signs so the helicopter search could find me but they passed by at least seven times, some close and some far, and I was waving my red sweater and towels but they never saw me.”
Discouraged and fearing she’d be stranded for days, Anonby packed her backpack, camp stove, and cardboard and hopped aboard her unicycle, which she’d stashed alongside the household supplies in her distinctive yellow 2000 VW Beetle, as she went looking for loggers or back country hikers.
“I unicycled 5 kilometres to the end of the road at the junction because I thought that would be faster, which was because tire versus legs,” she explained. “At every roadway I would yell and say ‘SOS, help’ and wait for a few seconds to see if I could hear anything and do it again."
As she left arrows marked in the dirt and left piles of rocks and written signs to lead back to her car, a massive search was mobilized by South Cariboo Search and Rescue and RCMP from 100 Mile House, which was closest to her friends, and the Clearwater detachment, which was closer to her.
“We went to search for her on the main route from 100 Mile to the lake," said friend Daphne John, who grew worried and called Anonby’s mom when she didn’t show up as expected. “We called the RCMP and explained this isn't like her, something is wrong and we need to start searching right away."
Lori Anonby and her husband, Steve, were alarmed and immediately left Surrey to drive north as they feared the worst.
“That piece, for me, was horrifying,” said Lori. “the idea that she could be stuck in the dark somewhere, if she was injured.”
Social media spread the missing young woman’s description, as volunteers combed a large area searching for any sign of her or the yellow car. Her parents were unsettled at the focus on ditches, where rescuers theorized she could’ve driven off the road and been too hurt to get to help.
Ultimately, luck and a strong hunch led a pair of unexpected rescuers to Anonby, who friends had been expecting from the western approach to the lake from 100 Mile House. But two of the few travelers she’d seen on the road far to the east near Clearwater suspected she might’ve run into trouble on the old road: when Dusty and Colin went to search that area, they found her signs and arrows and made a beeline for the Beetle.
"I had fallen asleep and heard tires on gravel and they turned the corner and were smiling so big and they were like, we've been looking for you!" she said. “I was so overwhelmed, I was crying, I hugged them both."
Lori was elated, feeling like her prayers were answered after hours spent scouring gravel roads with her husband and RCMP Const. Clint Lange.
“Those helicopters were there first thing in the morning, those search and rescue workers and volunteers – I didn’t realize how many people were helping because we were deep in the woods,” she said. “I just can’t thank people with big hearts enough.”
Her parents are struck by their daughter’s ingenuity and ability to stay calm in such a difficult situation. When asked how Anonby managed to tackle each obstacle so thoughtfully, she said it came down to a combination of factors.
"It’s probably just the way I think: I try not to react to things emotionally, I'm very much someone who tries to think things through before reacting so I think it was just an extension of that,” said the college student.
“I'm also obsessed with [survival and nature] documentaries and I love hiking … I didn’t realized how much I’d absorbed."
