The First Nation community of Ahousaht is doing whatever it can to try to coax back one of its own after isolating the man more than six months ago.
Travis Damon Thomas was dropped off on Bartlett Island, off the west coast of Vancouver Island, in July 2018 in what was supposed to be a traditional healing technique but something went wrong.
“If somebody is going through hard times we put them on an island to help them find themselves again and this one went awry and we lost him in whatever happened to him out there,” relative Alfred Dick told CTV News.
Relatives say the 41-year-old suffers from some mental health issues and has had several personal difficulties in the past few years, including dealing with the death of his wife.
Relatives went back to the island a month after sending Thomas there, but have been unable to get him to to come back. Search updates and reports of his rare sightings are now tracked through a private Facebook group.
“There’s numerous amount of caves and little dens on that little island where he’s bedded down and he stays in them and when the people are moving around he’ll stay away from them,” Dick said.
Co-ordinated search efforts have been greatly scaled back over the months to the point where relatives are now frustrated they are no longer receiving assistance.
Thomas’ mother Jean makes the 10 to 20-minute boat ride to the island as often as she can, trying to locate her son and checking on supplies and a tent that have been left for him.
“He goes into his tent to sleep, we can tell because the smell of my son is on the blanket. He tries to hide that he goes in there and puts the blanket back in the bag but if you open the bag I can smell my son and oh, the pain,” she said.
Friends and relatives continue to leave notes, photographs and even Thomas’ basketball jersey on the island in attempts to coax him to come out of hiding.
“We’ve left that all there for him to try to snap him out of what he’s in there,” Dick said.
Jean Thomas notes that her son has now spent Christmas and even his 41st birthday alone on the island and vows to continue returning to the island in attempts to bring him home to his four children.
