Lost hunter found safe
Partridge haul helps Miramichi man fend off bears during night stuck in the woods

James Connell and his dog Hunter were found safe and sound after a harrowing 26 hours in the woods this weekend in a broken-down truck. AIMEE BARRY/TIMES & TRANSCRIPT

BY AIMEE BARRY
Times & Transcript Staff

MIRAMICHI James Connell was grateful to be sitting in his warm house yesterday after a 26-hour ordeal this weekend that left him stranded in the wilderness.

Connell had his dog Hunter for company but also received a less-welcome visit from three bears during the night while he waited for rescue.

Connell, 63, got lost while hunting for partridge during a weekend excursion with friends when his truck broke down in the woods.

Connell, who has a camp in the South Dungarvan area, near Blackville, and his friends who have a cluster of cabins in the same area held a competition last weekend to see who could score the most partridge.

Connell set out on Saturday morning in his black 1997 truck. He returned around noon for lunch and then left again at about 1 p.m. but this time he found trouble.

"I hit a water puddle and I was 5.2 kilometres off the main highway," Connell said.

"I hit the water puddle and my truck stalled. It started again and I was up on dry landing, I wasn't stuck or anything but I tried to get it started and it killed the battery -- that happened around two in the afternoon," Connell said.

"I never told anybody where I was going because I was trying to get the most partridge."

Police said Connell was about 10 to 15 kilometres away from his hunting party when he became lost in an area popular among hunters because it is heavily wooded and remote.

Connell had a cell phone with him but he could not get a signal.

What little power Connell was able to squeeze out of the truck battery, he used to inch up the truck windows as, with the onset of darkness, the wind began to pick up and rain started to fall.

Connell was making himself comfortable when, around midnight, three visitors appeared outside - a mother bear and her two cubs .

Connell thinks the bears must have smelled the blood from the three partridges he'd killed earlier that day.

"Of course I had a 12-gauge shotgun with me and I wasn't too awful nervous," he said.

Connell opened his truck door and tossed the dead partridge outside watching the bears munch on the carcasses and then leave.

When Connell failed to return, his friends organized a search party, with one keeping up the seach until about 3 a.m.

Police were called around 10:45 p.m. Saturday night and they enlisted the help of Natural Resource officers while keeping the York/Sunbury Search and Rescue Team on standby.

Friends and police continued the search, worrying that Connell was alone and without his medications for diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma.

Meanwhile, Connell lay down in the back of his truck for the night while his dog slept between his legs giving him some extra body heat.

The next morning, a thirsty Connell made his best directional guess and managed to make his way out to a road, while finding a drink from water in the ditch. The road, however, was still in a remote location and he thought it best to go back to his truck in case it was stumbled upon first by rescuers.

On his way back to the truck he broke branches in the shape of an arrow pointing in the direction he was going and tied some red ribbon he had to them.

He also left notes in his truck in case someone stumbled upon it while he was gone, trying to tell them which direction he'd walked in.

On Sunday, the ribbons and make-shift arrows caught the eye one of Connell's cabin neighbours and they followed them to a cold and hungry Connell.

"They boosted (my truck) with booster cables and away they went," Connell said.