Two Kitchener girls were homeward bound on Monday following a three-night ordeal in Algonquin Provincial Park.

Reported missing Friday night by fellow campers, the disappearance of 16-year-olds Marta Malek and Maya Mirota sparked an extensive search in the air and on the ground by police, park wardens and staff, and trained volunteers.

The teens were found safe Monday around noon by an Ontario Provincial Police search-and-rescue dog and its handler. The girls were checked out by paramedics and didn’t need to be taken to hospital, OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson said.

“They’re doing excellent, and they’re on their way home,” Dickson said. “I’m sure they have a multitude of mosquito bites.”

A Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry float plane brought the girls from the area where they were found to the dock at Smoke Lake, where the search parties were based.

Freelance reporter Jim Poling Sr., who was at Smoke Lake, inside the park on Highway 60, said the girls arrived there via float plane and were taken into a hangar to waiting paramedics. When the girls left the hangar shortly afterward and started walking to waiting vehicles, Malek called out to media: “I’m feeling good, never been better.”

“There was a tearful, joyful reunion at the command post where the parents were waiting,” Dickson said.

Malek and Mirota were part of a Polish Scouting Association in Canada wilderness hiking trip, the group’s chair, Stan Reitmeier, wrote in an email. The experienced campers were on a six-day hike with adult leaders, and were equipped with food and camping gear, when they became separated from the group.

On Monday, one of the police dogs picked up a scent, and the dog and its handler located the girls, Dickson said, adding that. Malek and Mirota were found about two kilometres from where they were last seen on Thursday, on the Western Uplands Trail between Rainbow Lake and Susan Lake.

“As soon as they realized they were lost, they stopped. That is the best possible thing to do,” he said. “They had their tent, some other equipment, limited supplies. They must have started rationing.”