When little Lily Coursol by her Chilliwack home, she didn't have warm clothes with her, or water, or food.
But she sure did have an impressive knowledge of the outdoors.
It was 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 1 when six-year-old Lily chased two neighbourhood dogs into the thick forest north of Winona Road in the Chilliwack River Valley, a trail where she had played countless times before.
Lily's grandmother Brenda Brintnell, who Lily calls Nan, was outside working on her strawberry garden when a neighbour said he saw Lily follow the dogs into the woods. When the dogs, Ranger and Eeyore, returned about five minutes later, Lily did not.
Brintnell immediately left her wheelbarrow full of dirt and went up the trail. Friends and neighbours began searching right away. When Brintnell couldn't find Lily on the trail, she hopped in her car and began scouring the surrounding streets.
A team of RCMP officers, Chilliwack Search and Rescue volunteers, and the general public all came out to help.
“I just knew I was lost," Lily said, one week later, recalling the moment the dogs disappeared.
But she continued moving up the hill.
"She figured she would go up higher… she kept going up… she thought (the searchers) could see her if she went up higher," Brintnell said.
"I wanted to find my way out," Lily said. "I was out there all alone."
As darkness fell, the search continued through the night.
Lily didn't sleep.
“I covered myself up with leaves but I didn’t keep warm."
It was her Nan who taught Lily if she's ever cold and lost in the woods, to cover up with leaves. She also taught her granddaughter outdoor skills, to respect nature, and how to be "water smart." Lily knows not to drink water from streams or other waterways, not to go close to the Chilliwack River without her Nan, not to eat berries she finds in the woods, and how to identify stinging nettle and poison ivy.
Winona Road, a quiet dead-end street, is also home to other young children. They all play together, ride their bikes up and down the hill, and all the neighbours look out for one another.
Before Lily got lost, her nine-year-old neighbour had another survival tip – something Brintnell never heard of before.
"Her friend told her, if she ever gets lost, to find a tree and hug it. I never thought of that," Brintnell said.
That must have crossed Lily's mind because eventually she hunkered down, and the following day she stopped moving.
At first light, the search ramped up with RCMP, Chilliwack Search and Rescue, B.C. Conservation Officer Service, Department of Fisheries, and members of the public on the ground looking for Lily, as others in helicopters scanned the terrain from the air.
When asked what she did while she waited for someone to find her, she quietly said one word.
"Nothing."
Hours passed while Lily waited.
“I was very hungry and I was very thirsty. And I missed my Nan.”
She was terribly scared.
Then, almost exactly 24 hours after she was lost, Lily heard a search-and-rescue team.
“They were calling my name a lot,” she said. “I yelled back to them.”
When the searchers finally reached Lily, she simply said “I’m lost.”
She was found at 3:54 p.m. on Friday, May 2.
"When they said that they found her… it was sure a blessing," Brintnell said.
Insp. Jeff Bowerman with Chilliwack RCMP said she had wandered "quite a distance" from her home, but was in good health.
Lily had walked approximately 700 metres, as the crow flies, northeast of her home, according to the co-ordinates provided by Greg Unruh with Chilliwack Search and Rescue.
They wrapped her up in a red coat that was far too big for her, hooked her up to a harness with members of the search team, and performed a long-line rescue to lift her out of the thick woods. They brought her to an open area where a car was waiting to take her back home.
A little more than an hour after they found Lily, she was in her Nan's arms again.
"Before they even brought her out of the car she was like 'Nan!' She was just screaming for me," Brintnell said with a huge smile on her face. "She was just so excited."
, with two toes sticking out of a hole that tore in her kitty socks, squealed about how she got to ride on an "airplane," referring to the helicopter.
"When I got home to Nan, I had scratches all over my legs and bumps all over my legs. And scratches all over my arms and bumps all over my arms. Both of them.”
She also had a low-grade fever, but was otherwise fine.
Lily was put into an ambulance, along with her Nan. It was there that she had her first meal.
"They gave me a hamburger, chips and bacon!"
The paramedics also gave her "blue-flavoured" Gatorade to replenish her electrolytes. And when she got home that night, she had a bath to wash all the leaves out of her hair.
Brintnell extended a huge thanks to everyone who rallied to help, not just the RCMP and the search-and-rescue teams who found her granddaughter, but those who supported her as she waited in agony for Lily to be found.
She said she'd never seen an operation like it before. It was all-hands-on-deck, and everyone was working together.
"It was so organized… what they were going to do next… and the support that came in just to help me until she was there."
Now, the two are focusing on returning to their normal lifestyle as much as possible.
In the days that followed, they brought doughnuts to their neighbours, and a family member took them out for lunch. But mostly, they spent a lot of close "Nan and Lily time" together over the weekend, Brintnell said.
Lily, who's in Grade 1 and turns seven next month, went back to school the following Monday where everyone was very happy to see her.
Six days after Lily went missing, her Nan brought back a purple whistle she got at a seniors' expo. It's Lily's favourite colour, and also has a tiny compass on it, and a flashlight. Lily is now learning how to read the compass.
The whistle is perfect for the young girl Brintnell describes as brave, tough and smart, and also "very adventurous" just like her. They go hiking, swimming, biking, exploring the outdoors, and are ready to go kayaking together. Lily even returned to the same woods in which she got lost – this time with her Nan.
"They say she'll keep me young," Brintnell said with a laugh.
Even Ranger, the golden retriever puppy she followed into the woods on May 1, is still her best furry pal.
On May 8, the yellow ball of energy wandered down his driveway at the end of Winona Road. Lily, down the road by her own home, spotted him immediately.
“Ranger!” she exclaimed with gap-toothed smile.
Lily hopped on her bike, her messy ponytail dangling in her face, and began pedalling up and down the road, weaving through a handful of neighbours.
“Chase me, Ranger! Chase me!"
Brintnell laughed from up the street as she watched her boisterous and silly granddaughter play. It's moments like this where she has some reassurance that Lily is getting back to her typical self, even if it will take some time.
She said she's incredibly grateful to victim services for their "wonderful support" and the community, her family and friends for being there.
"Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for helping this terrifying adventure have a beautiful ending," Brintnell said.
She has lived in the Chilliwack River Valley for 35 years, and believes Lily's knowledge of the outdoors is what brought her home that day.
"She was patient within herself. I think she had a positive feeling that she knew she was going to be found," she said. "I just have that feeling that's why Lily did what she did. She knew to stay… (and knew) what she was doing was going to help them find her. And it worked.
"She used her smarts for her to be found."
Chilliwack Search and Rescue said it was a "true testament to her remarkable character" that Lily survived in the woods by herself without food or water, wearing nothing but Crocs, shorts and T-shirt.
"She's my free-spirited, little warrior," Brintnell said.
