VANCOUVER -- A pair of search and rescue missions headquartered in Campbell River continued Sunday, but crews said there had been no new clues in either one as of the early afternoon.
Paul Berry, search manager with Comox Valley Ground Search and Rescue, told CTV News Vancouver Island searchers are still actively looking for 51-year-old Michael Gazetas and 20-year-old Miles Meester, with separate searches under way for each one.
Gazetas was last seen by his wife around 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 31. He was leaving their home near Courtenay in his red Ford Ranger pickup truck, and she says he was upset at the time.
On Saturday, a flurry of new activity began in the search for him, after surveillance video was discovered showing his truck driving west along Highway 28 on the day of his disappearance.
Since then, Berry said, crews have been searching the highway and all of the logging and other roads that connect to it, looking for signs of the missing man. Both air and ground search continued Sunday, but "no further clues have come forward," Berry said.
A separate, unrelated search for Meester also continued Sunday.
The young man was last seen Thursday near Manson's Landing on Cortes Island. He had been living on the island for the last year, according to his aunt, Hannah Ballah.
Berry said that search, too, has yielded no further clues, but crews believe Meester has not left Cortes Island.
Ballah echoed this sentiment, though she said it's not impossible that he could have snuck onto a ferry undetected.
"All the ferry crews know, and nobody has seen him get on the ferry," she said.
If Meester has left the island, it may have been to go to Campbell River or to Quadra Island, as he has friends in both places, Ballah said.
She said his family is worried about him and hopes he knows that he will be welcomed home if he comes back.
"I think that he is scared," Ballah said. "We just want him to know that it's OK to come home. We want him to come home. Nobody's mad. We just, you know, want him home and safe."
The two searches come at the end of a difficult week for search and rescue crews on Vancouver Island, Berry said.
"The island as a whole has been very active with a number of large-scale and difficult searches over the past week or so," he said.
Among those were the search for three 20-year-old men in Sooke, which ended in tragedy with the discovery of two of their bodies on Feb. 2 and the third on Feb. 4.
Also still missing is 28-year-old Ethan Sampson, who was last seen in the waters of the Cowichan River on the night of Jan. 30.
Berry said if crews are unable to locate more clues for the whereabouts of a missing person, they may shift to a more passive search - putting up posters and working with local helicopter and logging companies to ensure people are keeping an eye out for the missing individuals.
"No search ever completely finishes," he said.