British ColumbiaAfter five months lost in northeastern B.C, a beloved family cat is heading home for the holidays. Since July, Shadow the cat has been surviving in the wilderness of the Northern Rockies.Named Shadow, the cat will be flown to Winnipeg before being driven the rest of the way homeTom Summer · CBC News · Posted: Dec 06, 2025 9:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 8 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Shadow the cat, rescued after being lost near Liard Hotsprings for nearly five months. The cat will return home to his family in Oklahoma, just in time for Christmas. (Submitted by Bruce Kosugi)After nearly five months lost in northeastern B.C, a beloved family cat is heading home for the holidays. Since July, Shadow the cat has been surviving in the wilderness of the Northern Rockies.The black cat was lost when his American owner Jeremy Barton stopped for a break at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park, a 300-kilometre drive northwest of Fort Nelson on the Alaska Highway. Barton was travelling back from Alaska to his home state of Oklahoma – when the cat slipped out. Barton searched for hours.”I started freaking out. I started walking around with his food bowl.”His efforts to lure Shadow out of hiding failed, and Barton had to break the news of the missing cat to his sons, Auri and Valor. “It was pretty devastating. They both cried for a couple of days,” he said. Now, Shadow is coming home.It came after provincial park operators found the cat, and connected with Fort St. John residents Bruce Kosugi and Christine Sutherland. The pair happened to be visiting the hot springs, and offered to drive the cat south, after the operators said they were trying to figure out a way to return Shadow to Barton. Highly allergic to cats, Kosugi suited up in a medical mask, while Sutherland held Shadow in her lap on the eight-hour, nearly 690-kilometre drive to Fort St. John. Sutherland with Shadow. She’s offered to fly the cat to Winnipeg this month to reunite him with owner Jeremy Barton, who will drive up from Oklahoma City. (Submitted by Bruce Kosugi)Despite nearly five months in the wild, Shadow is in good health, and will see his family this month when Sutherland flies to Winnipeg to reunite him with Barton.Barton is deeply grateful, and says the help in returning Shadow is something he won’t forget. “I’m just really thankful to my Canadian friends up north, my Canadian brothers and sisters up north,” Barton said. “Especially with all the things going on between our two countries recently, I’m just happy that we were able to do something good with each other and help each other out.”From Winnipeg, Barton will drive with Shadow more than 16 hours home to Oklahoma City. It’s a long journey with a happy ending. “You can never do too much, you know, when it comes to helping families at any time of year in any kind of distress,” said Sutherland. “This cat meant a lot to those two boys. And it’s so neat that they’re going to see him before Christmas.” ABOUT THE AUTHORTom Summer is a reporter for CBC News in Fort St. John. Born and raised in the Peace Country, he previously reported for the Alaska Highway News, covering community issues, courts, municipal politics, and Site C, while travelling across Northeast B.C. working on the traditional territory of Treaty 8 First Nations. You can reach him at tom.summer@cbc.ca
Lost for 5 months in the Northern Rockies, this cat is heading home to Oklahoma for Christmas
