Richard Dale Beaudoin was 38 when he began a solo canoe trip from Vancouver toward Powell River in the winter of 1991. He was paddling a distinctive 14-foot red or orange fiberglass freight canoe with wooden seats and a square stern and reached Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast. On December 29, 1991, he called his family from a payphone in Pender Harbour; that was his last confirmed contact.

Posters circulated in Sechelt, Pender Harbour, Egmont and Powell River through 1992 and 1993 describing him as between 6 feet 1 inch and 6 feet 3 inches, slim, with reddish-brown curly hair, blue eyes and a damaged left eye tooth. There was a possible sighting in Egmont that did not develop. Beaudoin was known to be deeply religious and would sometimes preach to people he met while travelling.

The Sunshine Coast RCMP later renewed an appeal for information and the investigation remains open. Does anyone who was on the Sunshine Coast in late December 1991 remember seeing a freight canoe or a man matching this description along that route?