DRUG TRADE FUELS FEARS FOR MISSING LOOKOUT WORKER

Police Suspect 70-Year-Old Met With Foul Play

HINTON - Some people in this area renowned for gently rolling
foothills, lakes and the beautiful Athabasca River valley worry the
growing scourge of drugs may have brought a killer into their
oil-rich community.

It's the only possible answer they have right now to the biggest
question on everyone's mind: What happened to a 70-year-old fire
lookout worker who disappeared late last week?

Louise Benbow has lived for 16 years in the Athabasca valley, south
of the watchtower where Stephanie Stewart was last seen.

"We've had a horrible problem with crack cocaine in Hinton in recent
years," Benbow said. "And God knows what kind of people are going up
and down the highway up to Grande Cache. There are also the
transients who go to Jasper every summer."

Calvin and Cheryl Bauer operate Suite Dreams, a bed and breakfast
about 15 kilometres south of the lookout, where Highway 40 meets
Highway 16. Like Benbow, they worry about the drugs that have
followed the big wages of the oil and gas sector into the Hinton area.

"We had a suspicious death across the highway from us two or three
years ago," Cheryl Bauer said. "That was connected with
methamphetamine. This problem isn't specific to Hinton. It's international."

Stewart disappeared sometime between Friday evening, when she phoned
a family member, and Saturday morning, when she was supposed to make
a regular check-in call required of all fire tower lookouts. She
hasn't been seen since.

When she did not respond to a call Saturday morning, Alberta
Sustainable Resources sent a supervisor to check. When the supervisor
found Stewart's outpost deserted and her grey pickup truck parked out
front, a massive search began, with up to 100 volunteers and forestry
workers, three helicopters, trucks and all-terrain vehicles.

That search was called off Wednesday afternoon. By then, teams had
combed the area and police had concluded Stewart was likely the
victim of foul play.

"There are three scenarios when someone goes missing," said Jason
Cottingham, a crew supervisor with Alberta Sustainable Resources, who
provided logistics to the search centre.

The missing person could be missing or lost, or could have fallen
victim to an animal attack. "If you eliminate those two things after
a thorough search, you are left with number three -- foul play."

At one time, the Athabasca fire tower where Stewart worked was
accessible only by 4X4, said John Braun, a retired Hinton school
teacher. In recent years, with the construction of a Nordic ski
centre nearby and improvements to the twisting gravel road leading to
the tower, the area has become far more accessible and attracts more visitors.

Braun was doing maintenance work on campsites around Jarvis Lake,
immediately north of the Athabasca tower, when he heard of Stewart's
disappearance.

"Now people go up there for hiking, for picnicking, for hang gliding
and for its vantage point, he said. "School groups also go up there
and it's been written up by the local paper as a place to go."

As traffic in the area has risen, so have crimes like vandalism and break-ins.

Stewart had worked as a lookout observer for 18 years. Friends and
co-workers describe her as fit, healthy, self-reliant and dependable.

Debby Greenlay can attest to Stewart's dependability. In recent
years, Greenlay often drove hang gliders to the tower so they could
fly from the summit. Some days, adverse winds forced fliers to wait
hours for takeoff, Greenlay said.

"The guys would be sitting on the ground, waiting, but Stephanie
wouldn't leave her post up in the tower. She took her job seriously."

Within hours of her disappearance, Sustainable Resources and
volunteers set up a search command post at the Nordic centre,
downhill from the tower.

On last day of the search, 75 people combed the woods, aided by
forest firefighters brought in to help from Whitecourt, Slave Lake,
Lac La Biche and other locations to help search.

By day's end, ground searchers had combed an area seven kilometres
long and just as wide, helicopters had covered 7,500 square
kilometres, and vehicles had covered 4,000 kilometres of roads and
trails, said Leslie-Anne Chapman, an Edson-based spokesman for
Alberta Sustainable Resources.

On Thursday morning, a work crew dismantled the search headquarters.
That doesn't mean the search has been called off, said Chapman, but
it must now become "opportunity based."

"People in the field have been instructed to keep their eyes open."

As the search wound down, Stewart's daughter made a tearful plea for help.

"We ask anyone with any information about her disappearance to please
come forward," said Lorie, who asked that her last name not be used.
"Please help bring her home.

"Mom's a hell of a woman," she said. "She's very strong, she's very
independent, she's very capable. She's been on towers for 18 years.
She's spent 13 years at Athabasca. The tower life is her life."

This is the first time a fire spotter has gone missing under
suspicious circumstances. Spotters are required to check in with
supervisors by radio or phone three times a day. They have to let a
colleague know when they go up to the tower or come down, and when
coming or going at the tower site.

Department spokeswoman Annette Bidniak said an automatic safety
review will be conducted to determine if any policies need to be changed.

She said the spotters in Alberta's 128 towers don't have to work
alone, and can have a pet, spouse or friends stay with them. "Many
choose to live alone; that's what attracts them to the job."

From April to October, Stewart would have been alone at her fire
tower and nearby cabin, going into Hinton for groceries and other
necessities. She lives in Canmore in the off-season.

RCMP say two pillows, a burgundy bed sheet, a brown-patterned duvet
and a gold watch kept for sentimental reasons are missing from
Stewart's cabin, 25 kilometres northwest of Hinton.

Stewart is about five feet tall and about 100 pounds, with blue eyes,
permed shoulder-length grey hair and glasses.