Absent From The FireTower

It's not the kind of thing many people would like to do. In fact, very few do. Those who appreciate solitude, the kind of people who like to be on their own, away from it all. Perhaps people who deplore the way the world is, with its values, who just don't want to be a part of it. On the other hand, people too who simply are iconoclastic, rejecting the social contract, people for whom the majesty of nature is far more important than other peoples' company.

The anti-social in temperament, or those who feel they are fully capable of facing loneliness, preferring it to the irritation of the company of others. It's hard to pin down, exactly. It appeals to the fiercely independent, those who have supreme confidence in their ability to cope. Those who can busy themselves without dependence on modern technology.

One might think of young people being attracted perhaps to the prospect of being alone for weeks at a time, their only contact with others through electronic communications, and then only for reporting purposes. This is complete and utter isolation. Desolation and despondency for most, a refuge from the bustle of humanity and all that it might imply.

But a frail, albeit healthy, 70-year-old woman? Electing to submit herself for yet another summer to the silence and self-occupation of fire-spotting? Certainly out of the ordinary. Making her, one can only imagine, a most unusual person. Stephanie Stewart worked for the Alberta Sustainable Resource Development agency as a provincial employee for 18 years, thirteen of those years at the Athabasca tower lookout. Her job was to visually scrutinize the environment to detect early warnings of fire outbreaks, and to report anything suspicious immediately.

The purpose is for workers' eyewitness reports to enable quick, first-person accounts of any blazes so firefighting crews could be dispatched immediately to the areas. These are remote sites, these firewatching sites. People like Ms. Stewart commit to spending their summers alone and alert. A third of the sites are accessible only by air, or they have the absolute minimum access to roads. It is not for the faint-of-heart, obviously.

In the summer of 2006, on August 26, Stephanie Stewart failed to file her usual daily morning report. This was highly unusual. Her supervisor tried to contact her but failed. He then drove to the tower. She was nowhere to be seen but inside in the kitchen, a pot of water was still warm. No trace of the woman has ever been found. A few items were found to be missing from the cabin; pillow cases, a sheet, a duvet. Nothing that made any sense.

She was a slight, grey-haired woman who wore glasses, but was otherwise fit and energetic.

She had never before failed to file her fire and weather reports. She occupied herself reading, embroidering, and she painted watercolours of the wildflowers that abounded further down, around the mountains.

"For the first couple of months, I thought it was a bear or something. I thought maybe somebody came by and needed some help and she agreed to go along and help them, and they abducted her. She would help anybody; she was just one of those people."

Gone. Where? How? Why?