By Trevor Greenway
It was a dramatic rescue like no other in recent Gatineau Hills history. A well-known, much-loved senior from Low went missing from her family farm on Nov. 23, and a legion of locals showed up to find her.
More than 400 volunteers hiked the hills and combed the forest for hours to look for 73-year-old Grace Early after her family made a public plea to find their mother. At 12:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon – after Early had spent over 40 cold hours alone in the bush – she was found huddled in the fetal position at the base of a hollowed-out tree. She was cold and dehydrated and sustained some minor bumps and bruises on her legs.
Early, a mother of seven, endured two full nights in the cold, with rain and temperatures hovering around 0 Celsius. She had no water, no toque and no cell phone.
“My dad called her the toughest old bird he’s ever seen because he admitted that he doesn’t think that he would have been able to last as long out in the woods as she did, and he’s been in the woods his entire life,” said Grace’s daughter, Maggie Early, fighting off joyous tears at the rescue of her mother. “She was not scared. She didn’t think about wolves and coyotes. And I was out there Friday night, and the wolves and coyotes were screaming around us.”
Early is now recovering at the Shawville hospital with pneumonia and hypothermia, and Maggie told the Low Down that she has the community to thank for showing up by the hundreds within hours of her public request for help.
Maggie’s family posted a plea for help on Facebook at 6 a.m. Nov. 23 and said they would have been thrilled if 50 locals showed up to help. The post told locals to: “Please don’t message, just show up.” And show up they did.
By 10 a.m., her family farm was swarming with volunteers, local restaurants and grocery stores donated a spread of food and rescue groups joined officers with the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), who had been searching with dogs and drones the night before. An SQ helicopter was whirring across the Hills in search of the missing senior.
“I knew people would show up, but I didn’t expect that many,” said Maggie, adding that volunteers ranged from firefighters and search and rescue workers to old friends who used to refer to Grace as their second mom. Fire departments deployed, including Low, Kazabazua, Danford Lake, Bryson and Otter Lake. Even players from the Paugan Falls Rapids senior hockey team were out looking for Grace.
“These people are our friends. We grew up together. We went to school together. We hang out together,” Maggie told the Low Down. “She’s our mother of seven, but growing up and still today, every time one of our friends comes over, it’s ‘Mama Grace,’ or ‘Gracie,’ or ‘Grandma Grace.’”
An ‘epic’ community response
According to Maggie, Grace was driving up the mountain on their family farm between Low and Otter Lake around 5 p.m. when her truck became stuck. She hopped out of the cab to head towards the farmhouse. Maggie said the farm is over 2,000 acres, and the sky was “black dark.” She said that her mom simply got turned around and became lost. At some point a trail camera picked up her movements, and the family could tell which direction she went, but they couldn’t find her. They spent Nov. 21 looking for her with drones and dogs – well into the early hours of the morning.
“The first night, she said she crawled in tight to a rock and with a big tree and stayed put. And she said she just sat there and prayed,” explained Maggie. “And then, Friday morning, she woke up still with us, and she said she got up, walked about 20 feet and couldn’t make out any landmarks. So she stood up against a tree facing the sun and prayed all day.
Then she woke up, and it was dark, so that would have been Friday evening, and she said she could hear four-wheelers and sirens.”
Grace said she stayed put, fell asleep and woke up the following day to rescue workers and volunteers aiding her. She was found lying on the ground with her eyes closed in the fetal position. According to firefighters on the scene, she was dehydrated, hungry and suffering from hypothermia.
Despite spending close to 40 hours alone in the cold, dark night, she was in “good spirits” when they found her, according to Low firefighter Maureen Rice.
“The boys that found her gave her a banana, yogurt and water. She was definitely cold and weak,” said Rice.
Rapids player Nolan Peck was among the volunteer group that found her Saturday afternoon and said that he was “impressed” at how cognisant and stable she was after spending two full nights alone in the bush.
“My first thoughts upon seeing here was, ‘That is tough as nails to be able to do that,’ and especially at that age,” said Peck. “I was just in wonder.” Peck said when he heard that Grace was missing on the Friday night, he was ready to drop everything to find her – as were 400 others, something he says is not out of the ordinary for a place like the Gatineau Valley.
“It’s honestly unsurprising to me,” said Peck who called the Early family “pillars of the community” who volunteer at hockey games, figure skating and many a community event.
“I think everyone knows that there’s something special going up there in the Gatineau Valley. it just, it kind of just reinforced what everyone knows: everyone’s got each other’s backs. That was very clear and evident on on Saturday.” Peck said many were fearing the worst as they looked over the family farm, section by section.
“You think you’re going in there and, you hate to say it, but you’re expecting the worst,” said Peck. “But it doesn’t surprise me that Grace was able to get through all that. Everyone knows that she’s one of the toughest women around, and she just showed it again.”
When the search group found her, Rice said she heard the sounds of victory cheers and screams echoing across the farmland. She added that the community response was “epic.”
“The group of volunteers that found her did an amazing job getting her warmed up and helping with the evacuation,” said Low firefighter Ellen Rice-Hogan. “Grace and the whole family are such a loved family. I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. The community coming together the way it did was truly amazing. When we did the evacuation, you had people clearing a path – moving rocks and trees. We all came together as one team and moved a mountain.”
Maggie said she had “no words” to describe how she felt when she finally saw her mom after the ordeal.
“I jumped off my four-wheeler and ran up the side of the mountain just to see her myself,” said Maggie through tears. “And when she got down to the ground, I touched her face.” Grace was transported to hospital by ambulance and is recovering from hypothermia, dehydration and minor scrapes.
At 73, she’s ‘tough as nails’
She’s been dubbed “the toughest bird” of the Gatineau Valley after 73-year-old Grace Early endured more than 40 hours alone in the bush without water, food, shelter or a cellphone.
And she said she wasn’t even afraid.
“I just wasn’t scared,” Early told the Low Down sitting up in her hospital bed in Shawville where she is recovering from hypothermia, pneumonia and minor bumps and bruises. She added that she was always confident that search and rescue workers would find her “one way or another.”
The Low mother of seven spent two full nights alone in the bush after she got lost on her sprawling family farm Nov. 21. She was found two days later after an army of volunteers 400 strong showed up to help look for her.
Early told the Low Down that she was overwhelmed with joy when she saw a group of “nice-looking men” coming to her rescue.
“I was never so happy in my life to see them,” said Early.
The exhaustion of her ordeal has taken its toll, but it has left her sense of humour intact. While this reporter sat at her bedside, she was cracking jokes and laughing with her daughters and other family members. Despite her harrowing experience, Early said she remembers it clearly.
“The first thing I asked [the rescuers] was, ‘Does somebody have a cigarette?’” She said one of them lit one up right then and there. When this reporter asked how that first cigarette tasted, she breathed a deep sigh of relief, closed her eyes and said, “Heaven,” while her daughters scoffed and shook their heads.
Early was driving on her 2,000-acre farm between Low and Otter Lake around 5 p.m. Nov. 21 when her truck became stuck. Already getting dark, Early got turned around and started walking in the wrong direction. It didn’t take long for fatigue to set in. It was cold, pitch black and raining, and Early had no supplies. She found a rock near a tree, wedged herself between the two and fell asleep.
“I slept there,” said Early. “I couldn’t see because it was so dark, and my legs were just like rubber. I was so cold, my whole body was shaking.”
In the morning, she said she got up and tried to walk some more, but she was too tired, and she decided to stay put. She said her second day was hazy but remembers finding another hollowed-out tree where she would later sleep for the night. The next morning she said she couldn’t move. She was too weak and tired, and her legs were starting to atrophy. By then, search crews were making their way through the area, and she said she could hear dogs, ATVs and the whirring of a helicopter above.
“The first thing I heard was a helicopter,” said Early. “And to get the helicopter’s attention, I took my rubber boot off, and I put it on the longest stick that I had, and I started waving it. I was screaming and praying.”
Not long after, Early said she was rescued by a group of volunteers. She said she remembers getting tended to by Low firefighter Ellen Rice-Hogan and then waking up in hospital.
It wasn’t until the next day that her daughters told her that more than 400 locals scoured the bush for hours to look for her and that businesses like IGA and local restaurants donated enough food to feed them all. When asked what she had to say to her community, she was speechless. She placed her hands over her mouth and slowly wiped the tears rolling down her cheek. She motioned to her daughter Maggie and said, “You know what I want to say.”
“She just wants to say thank you,” added her daughter. “She’s so appreciative.”
Early is expected to make a full recovery and should be back at home within the next few days.
“We’re calling her the toughest bird of the Gatineau Hills,” added Maggie with an exhausted, relieved laugh.
