The body of Donald Jean Belliveau, a 28-year-old New Brunswick man who went missing in 1995, was discovered in the Athabasca Glacier, July 31. The discovery was made by a mountain guide leading a group of hikers on the glacier.
RCMP personelle and Parks Canada visitor safety specialists, with the assistance of an RCMP helicopter, attended the scene July 31, and determined that the body had melted out of the glacier, but had previously been there for a significant amount time. However, with only four or five hours of daylight to work with, they weren't able to recover it by the nightfall.
Aug. 1 they returned to the scene, and by noon had recovered the body.
According to the RCMP's on-call media relations officer, Jeff Campbell, clothing, hair fibres and personal items such as eyeglasses found at the scene helped the RCMP connect the body with a decades-old missing person file. Once investigators were "99 per cent" certain they had made a proper identification, they contacted next of kin for confirmation of the man's identity.
Campbell said the family was relieved to finally have closure after 19 years.
"They had one grieving process 19 years ago, but now they can actually have full closure," he said, adding that the particular weather patterns and freeze-thaw cycle of this season made that closure possible.
"It's just dumb luck really that the conditions were right this year," he said.
Belliveau's body will now be sent to Edmonton, where the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will try to determine the cause of death, but Campbell said foul play isn't suspected.
"There's nothing that looks suspicious at all, so we're not looking at a homicide," he said, adding that initially it doesn't appear that Belliveau had fallen, and he wasn't discovered in a particularly dangerous area.
The investigation, Campbell said, is "just more answering the lingering question why."
Trevor Nichols
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