A 21-year-old mystery has been solved following the discovery of the identity of the man found on the Columbia Icefield on August 15. 

William Holland, a 38-year-old resident of Gorham, Maine, disappeared on April 3, 1989 after a cornice of ice broke off beneath him on the Snow Dome Mountain. The search was called off and Holland was presumed dead after a massive avalanche of ice fell on the area the following day. 

“We had to piece together all the details that happened that day,” said Steve Blake, visitor safety specialist for Parks Canada who assisted in the extraction of the body. 

Now those details have all been determined. 

Holland was hiking with fellow Maine resident Chris Dube. The two Americans met a group of local hikers made up of Ken Wallator, from Hinton, and Rick Costea, from Jasper, and followed them up the Slipstream to Snow Dome Mountain. 

At some point the American team overtook the local climbers and went ahead. Blake said the Slipstream is a tough climb that ascends almost a vertical kilometre before reaching the summit that extends onto the Columbia Icefield. 

“Slipstream is a huge climb,” he said. 

The climbers reached the top of Slipstream at about 3 p.m. and switched to hiking, and this is where they may have made a crucial mistake. Holland and Dube were connected by a rope on their ascent, but at the top they decided to untie it. The rope was slung over Holland’s shoulder.

The weather began to become unstable, and Blake said there were white-out conditions. 

“The weather was a bit in and out,” he said. 

Holland and Dube began searching for a way back down the tough Slipstream. As Holland began probing with his ski pole at the edge, a cornice broke off, sending him tumbling down Snow Dome. Because Holland had the rope over his shoulder, Dube was unable to go after his partner. Blake speculates that had the two been connected by the rope the outcome could have been different. 

Dube was discovered frantically searching for his partner at the top by Wallator and Costea as they reached the top. The group began to move down toward their base camp. During the climb back down Costea dislocated his shoulder after helping pull one of the two men out of a crack. The group had to leave the injured man at the base camp and continue on for help. 

Costea spent the night on the mountain before a helicopter showed up the next morning to rescue him. They searched the area where they believed Holland may be, but could not find him. The search was eventually called off when an avalanche of snow and ice covered the area. 

“We don’t really know what happened to his body over the last 21 years,” Blake said. 

He suggests the body could have been covered or pushed into a crevasse by the force of the avalanche. Holland’s body was located at least a kilometre from where he fell. 

“His body would have flowed down the mountain with the glacier,” Blake said. 

The area where Holland’s body was found is a desolate and barren area not very popular with hikers due to the glaciated and moraine-like terrain that is hard to reach. That may have added to how long it took for the discovery to be made. The area itself is accessible from the Icefields Parkway, but Blake said the location of the body – about five kilometres off the parkway near the Sunwapta River – could not be seen. 

Blake said if Holland were alive today he may have some words for hikers. 

“If William Holland wanted to pass a message on it would be ‘Be really careful around cornices,’” Blake said. 

Holland’s family was notified by RCMP on August 26, and will now make arrangements to bring his remains back to the U.S. Corporal Tony Dolhan with the Jasper RCMP said the RCMP’s involvement is over now that the family has been notified. He confirmed that the actual cause of death has not yet been determined, and could take months. 

Now that Holland’s identity has been determined, the RCMP and Parks Canada have been able to close their missing persons file on the incident. 

“Until the bodies are removed, we can’t close the file,” Cpl. Dolhan said.

The Jasper RCMP has a number of missing persons files that remain open. Cpl. Dolhan could not confirm whether those files were related to hiking incidents, but upon the discovery of the body, Blake said the missing person could be between three and four different people that had gone missing in the area over the years. 

Holland’s discovery closes at least one of those files, and will hopefully provide some relief to his family who have wondered what happened to him for 21 years.