On January 29, 2012, 14-year-old Burton Winters left the small Labrador town of Makkovik on his snowmobile. Traveling alone on the treacherous sea ice, his machine became stuck on the vast, featureless expanse. Lost, but determined to find his way home, Burton walked 19 kilometres through blinding snow before hypothermia took his life. It took four days for searchers to locate the youth’s body­—far too long for anyone to be exposed on the ice. Errors were made in the crucial first hours and days of the search, errors that speak to frightening shortcomings in Canada’s Search and Rescue system. In the wake of Burton Winters’ tragic death, journalist Michael Friis Johansen investigates what went wrong­—communication breakdowns, questionable protocols, inter-governmental squabbling, and disrepair of key lifesaving equipment—and what should happen to make Canada’s wilderness and coastline safer for all. The Boy Who Walked is Burton Winters’ story: his life, his community, his final days, and his lasting legacy.

Michael Johansen has been a print and radio journalist since the late 1980s, writing for newspapers, wire services and magazines in Canada and abroad. He was born near Toronto in 1962 and studied in Ontario, Scotland, and Nova Scotia.

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