“I feel like… there’s something missing. We’re missing a piece, we’re not connecting something,” Heather Shtuka tells CFJC Today. “Whatever that is, Scott and I aren’t picking up on it, the over 1000 volunteers that have come up, they’re not picking up on it. RCMP aren’t picking up on it. We’re missing something for him to be gone so long with not a trace.”

Shtuka says she’s surprised that in a community the size of Sun Peaks, no one has heard what happened to her son.

“Not a hint, not gossip, not second-hand information. Nothing that’s verifiable since the day that he walked up that door of the house he was at the party at.”

Heather came to Sun Peaks just days after Ryan was last seen on February 17. In that time, she says there have been no solid leads in Ryan’s disappearance, despite the efforts of thousands of professional and volunteer searchers.

“It’s frustrating,” Heather says. “Maybe there isn’t anything to tell, and maybe that’s frustrating as well. Maybe it’s just that he walked out and was in the elements and despite our best efforts we are just not searching in the right areas.”

She also acknowledges there’s the distinct possibility that her son left the mountain that night.

“[Maybe he went] off the hill, and now we’re searching here and he’s not on the hill,” she says. “It’s boggling to the mind that we have no other information.”

The uncertainty surrounding her son’s disappearance has been the most difficult thing Heather has ever experienced.

“We are so emotionally tired,” Shtuka said. “I don’t think I’ve felt so tired, and yet I have to remind myself that this isn’t even about me. I still have the opportunity to get up the next day, and I have the opportunity to enjoy my family and my friends and my loved ones. My son hasn’t had that opportunity, and I would gladly trade places.”

Despite those moments of frustration, she says she pushes herself forward, with the belief that she’s getting closer to finding out what happened to her son.

“We’re going to keep searching until I have no more breath to give. And then whoever is after me will carry on, because he matters. It’s important to know where he is. It’s important to have closure. It’s important to be strong enough to continue to go, even though I don’t want to.”