Travelling in remote areas … whether it be the Australian Outback, the African plains, or the Canadian wilderness … can be a dangerous business.
Every so often, travellers meet with tragedy after running out of water, or having their vehicle break down, or being attacked by wildlife … and then there are the occasional truly amazing tales of survival.
One such tale has just emerged from Canada. A man has survived three months in the wilderness … but only after eating his dog which had saved him from a bear.
Experienced outdoors adventurer, Marco Lavoie, was hypothermic, dehydrated and had lost half his body weight, when he was rescued earlier this week. It is thought he would have survived only a couple of more days.
The 44-year-old was halfway through a three-month canoe trek in the Lake Mattagami area, 800km out of Montreal, when a bear attacked his campsite, eating his supplies and destroying his equipment.
Although his German shepherd scared the bear away, Lavoie was left with nothing to eat and no equipment. A few days later, he made the agonising decision to kill and eat his pet in order to survive.
“He survived because he made good decisions,” Andre Francois Bourbeau, a survival expert, told The Toronto Sun. “Eating his dog was one of them.”
A spokesperson for local authorities reportedly said Lavoie’s first words after being found were: “I want to get a new dog.”
Comment below
How sad.
I hope it wasn’t because he had developed a taste for K9 that he wanted to get a new one.
Just surprised that wit modern technology that he didn’t take a Sat phone or EPRIB with him for a 3 month trip. Both him and his best mate would of been rescued quickly