A mushroom picker missing since last Saturday turned up at around 1 p.m. Thursday.

Darrel Russell, 55, of Kitwanga, B.C., found his way back to camp on his own after having spent five nights in the Barney Lake fire burn area near Watson Lake.

Since Monday, Watson Lake RCMP had been searching for Russell, with assistance from search and rescue crews from Yukon and B.C., Yukon conservation officers, Yukon Wildland Fire Management and others.

Russell had minor injuries and was taken to Watson Lake Community Hospital to be assessed on Thursday afternoon.

He told the RCMP that he’d had some food and water with him when he got lost, and he had lit a fire every night. He said he heard the rescue helicopters, but didn’t see them.

Sgt. Cam Lockwood of the Watson Lake RCMP said there’s no way to know how far Russell strayed from the area where he was last seen last Saturday, near Coal River Road.

Though Russell made it back to camp on his own, rescue efforts were not for nothing.

On Wednesday, crews found two additional mushroom pickers who were lost but had not yet been reported missing.

One had been lost for three days. The other was lost for 24 hours.

Lockwood said he had little information about the two additional pickers, but did know they had suffered no injuries.

Lockwood was grateful for the search and rescue support, which grew daily over the course of the search.

“It’s always really beneficial; it always makes our job easier to have more boots on the ground,” he said, noting it can be the difference between saving a life or not.