Tuxedo Cat 'Shadow' Found After 5 Months in the Northern Rockies — Volunteers Rush Him Home for Christmas

Shadow, a tuxedo cat, disappeared in July during a family road trip from Alaska to Oklahoma after vanishing at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park in northern British Columbia. For five months the family and local volunteers searched and shared photos across social media, but there were no confirmed sightings — until recently, when park staff spotted Shadow back at the park and reported that he appeared to be in surprisingly good health.

Owner Jeremy Barton said he had searched the park for hours with Shadow’s food bowl before being forced to continue his journey and break the news to his two young sons. "I started freaking out. I started walking around with his food bowl," Barton recalled. "It was pretty devastating. They both cried for a couple of days."

Reuniting Shadow With His Family

Finding Shadow solved one problem but created another: how to get the cat back to Oklahoma, hundreds of miles and an international border away. Two residents of Fort St. John — Christine Sutherland and Bruce Kosugi — volunteered to help. The town is about an eight-hour drive southeast of Liard Hot Springs, and Sutherland and Kosugi coordinated with Barton and local outlets to arrange the journey south.

"You can never do too much, you know, when it comes to helping families at any time of year in any kind of distress," Sutherland told CBC. "This cat meant a lot to those two boys. And it's so neat that they're going to see him before Christmas."

Kosugi, who suffers from a severe cat allergy, wore a medical mask for the eight-hour drive to Fort St. John so Shadow could travel comfortably. The plan is for Sutherland to fly the cat to Winnipeg, where Barton will meet them; from there he will drive more than 16 hours back to Oklahoma to reunite Shadow with his family for the holidays. Barton’s children even offered to forgo Christmas presents to help cover the costs of the cat’s return.

Community Effort and a Lucky Break

The story highlights both Shadow’s resilience surviving alone in the Northern Rockies for months and the kindness of strangers who stepped in to help reunite a lost pet with its owners. Local media including CBC and Energetic City, along with national outlets, shared the developments as the reunion plan came together.

Reported sources: People, CBC, Energetic City.