History on the run: new book tracks the trail of the elusive Bushman of the Shuswap
Posted July 18, 2021 11:14 am.
Last Updated October 18, 2021 11:42 am.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – If you are of a certain age, you may well remember the tale of John Bjornstrom, aka the Bushman of the Shuswap, a fugitive from justice who made headlines in the early 2000s hiding out in the cabin country surrounding BC’s Shuswap Lake. Now, 20 years later, someone has finally committed that story to paper.
That someone is Paul McKendrick, author of The Bushmen’s Lair: On The Trail of The Fugitive of The Shuswap. Like many first-time authors, he was motivated to tell the story because it was a book he wanted to read.
“I had a little extra time, so I thought, ‘Well, if no-one else is going to write it, then maybe I’ll have to because that’s the only way I’ll be able to read it,” he says.
McKendrick spins a tale that is very much history on the run. He not only retraces the Bushman’s steps, but also delves into how Bjornstrom became a fugitive in the first place.
“He had been involved in private investigation work for a few years when he happened to meet David Walsh, the president of Bre-X, in a chance meeting at a bar in Calgary.”
Much has already been written about the Bre-X mining scandal over the years, but suffice it to say, Bjornstrom may have known too much about some shady goings-on and decided to lam it. The Calgary-based company collapsed after the discovery of a fraud at its mine in Indonesia wiped out about $3 billion in investors’ money in 1997. Walsh died the following year of an apparent brain aneurysm.
Bjornstrom escaped from jail in Kamloops and was on the run for two years before being captured in November 2001 after a massive manhunt. In 2004, he was sentenced to house arrest for 23 months after pleading guilty to 10 charges including break and enter.
He survived by stealing food and property from dozens of cabins in the woods around Shuswap Lake, where he repeatedly eluded the RCMP but spoke with several media outlets about his underground encampment.
“I managed to look at the cave in-person,” McKendrick says. “It was quite extensive, almost a thousand square feet, and it was outfitted with shelving and custom-made furniture.”
But don’t try looking for it now.
“There’s nothing there anymore. The authorities blew it up because they perceived it as a safety hazard, so you wouldn’t be able to find it without someone showing you where it is. But there really isn’t anything to see there anymore.”
McKendrick fills in the Bushman’s backstory with the help of Bjornstrom’s sister and court transcripts, walking away with a different impression of him than he started with. And he thinks you will too.
“You know, if there’s some empathy that can come out of the story, then I think that helps me feel that it was a worthy undertaking.”
Bjornstorm died in 2018 at the age of 58.
The Bushman’s Lair: On The Trail of The Fugitive of The Shuswap is available from Harbour Publishing.
– With files from the Canadian Press.
