The Rescue Of Belle And Sundance

On December 15, 2008, two snowmobilers discovered a pair of abandoned horses atop B.C.’s Mount Renshaw in the Canadian Rockies. Belle and Sundance were a sorry sight -- they were emaciated, shivering and trapped in a small shelter they had made for themselves by tramping down the six-footdeep snow. Next morning, a party of four from the nearby town of McBride was sent back up the mountain with a bale of hay, a handgun and a heartbreaking choice to make: either feed the horses, or shoot them.

The four agreed: there was an undeniable glimmer in the eyes of Belle and Sundance, and the decision was made to feed them. But saving the two horses would require a lot more than hay. Weighing their options, many people in McBride decided to pull on their long johns and pitch in -- they would dig, by hand, the three-foot-wide, six-foot-deep, kilometre-long tunnel that became Belle and Sundance’s route to freedom.

The Rescue of Belle and Sundance takes the reader up that starkly beautiful but bitterly cold mountain to the heart of the struggle to save two horses. In this account, with its grim beginning and its glad and joyful end, Stutz and Scanlan recreate the rescue that sent a message of hope and compassion around the world.

BIRGIT STUTZ was a key member of the rescue team. A horsetrainer, riding instructor and journalist, she lives on a ranch nearMcBride in northeastern British Columbia.