North Frontenac girl survives night in the woods

Jeff Green | Aug 07, 2014

Elya Munro will have an answer to the traditional first day of school question: What did you do this summer?
Elya, who is 9 and lives in Fernleigh, will be in grade 5 come September. She attends Clarendon Central School in Plevna and she has a story to tell.
She spent Monday night in the woods at her family's property near Calabogie, accompanied by her cousin Ember Beatrix, 11.
The two girls were participating in a family game of hide and seek when they got lost just before sundown. Police were called in at 10 pm on August 4 and spent the night combing the woods. The girls were found, safe and sound, on Tuesday afternoon, after spending almost 18 hours in the woods. They were located “about a kilometre or two in the bush” according to OPP constable Beth Ethier. Police used a helicopter, a canine unit, and ATVs to conduct the search,
Elya is connected to the Ripley family in Fernleigh, and she was vacationing at a property that has been in the family for decades. In fact she is not the first family member to spend a long night lost in the woods at the property. Her great uncle Phil Ripley once did the same thing.
“In the '50s my father, my two brothers and I got lost in the same place. We over-nighted in the bush and wound up at the Calabogie bridge," he told the CBC. "I’m 73 and that was the most horrifying night of my life … that’s all I could think of. I had my father and brothers. They had nobody. We didn’t even know if they were together.”
As to what exactly the girls went through during those 18 hours in the bush - that’s for Elya to tell her class-mates on the first day of school.