eath of a Mountie

Twenty years after the death of a Terrace RCMP officer, his memory carries on.

Stories By ROD LINK
THE BRASS plaque inserted
into the wall of the entryway

to the RCMP detachment —

‘ here blends in with the brick. |
So much so that you might ©

not notice it at first.

== You should. It contains ”

the name- of Michael Jo-'

' seph Buday, the 27-year-
old RCMP constable shot
and killed 20 years ago this
March 19 on the shores of

Teslin Lake far north of here *

toward the Yukon border. -

The killer was Michael .

Eugene Oros, a 33-year-old
American who had left his

_ country and the Vietnam
war draft for the vastness of
northern British Columbia
in the early 1970s. -

° Living alone in the bush, ;
often by stealing provisions .

from, the cabins. of others,

. Oros became a feared com- '

modity.

"Appearing and. disap--

pearing almost at will and

_well-armed, using . age-old '

trails and accompanied by.

his dogs, Oros retreated into
. the solitude of his mind.
' Diaries and notes left
behind at various ‘places
by Oros-referred to ‘sneak

arounds” and “torture drug-. -

gers” — people he believed
were outto gethim.

Oros took the name of =

Sheslay Free Mike after an
abandoned settlement. He

worked occasionally for

supplies.

Oros would shoot at air-
planes; pilots refused to fly
low. over the. territory in
which he roamed:«:

1985 Oros was known to the
“RCMP. = * c
_. Several years before, in
1981, RCMP received a re-

i
i

: at placing him ‘in a mental.
-hospital also failed.

port that a German trapper, ~

Gunter Lishy, had’: disap-
peared: In many ways, Lishy
was like Oros, living alone
in the north, a refugee from
"his past life.

They knew each other
— Lishy even had a photo of
‘Oros hanging o1 on the wall of
a cabin. ;

- It took the RCMP six
months to find and arrest
- Oros. But although Oros
was found with property be-
longing to Lishy, there was
never enough evidence to
sustain a trial.

Taken to Terrace, Oros

- was charged with possession :

°of stolen property and was

+ tee re . j
a - TROOPER and Constable Michael Buday.. -
Even before March 19, .. nn ;

later acquitted. An attempt

During the six months it

‘took’ to process the charg-

es, Oros was first placed in

RCMP cells and when re-

leased, he camped out on
Terrace Mountain.

“Released in. 1982, Oros
‘went back north, vowing. to

never be taken alive. The

dogs he had with him when"

arrested were killed, -a cir-
cumstance that fueled the
hatred Oros developed for
the police.

. Over the years further
reports came in about Oros
and his actions:. Thefts con-

_tinued from cabins.

In. mid-March 1985
RCMP received another re-

port of a cabin break-in ‘at:

. Teslin Lake from its owners.
“They even spotted Oros off
_ in the: distance.

“At dawn. oni. March 17,

RCMP. officers went. up in.

an airplane to look for Oros.
They found him. He shot at
the plane. ;

They returned to -base

and after contact with senior .

RCMP commanders, the de-

cision was made to call in

the northern B.C. Emergen-
cy Response Team (ERT).

Made up. of. regular
RCMP officers especially
trained for dangerous situ-
ations, the ERT included
Buday, a dogmaster, and
Trooper, his dog.

Loaded with weapons and

‘gear, the team assembled in -

Prince Rupert the night of

' journey.

north to Whitehorse. -
“From. there, they would
- board helicopters. ‘for the.
to Teslin

south to _
Lake: On the morning of
March 19, Buday, Trooper

and two other officers left on.

one of the helicopters. Other

officers were on another he-

licopter..:

A fixed wing aircraft con-

taining other RCMP mem-
bers was already in the air
‘over the-lake, reporting back
on the whereabouts of Oros.

The fear was that Oros

» would leave the openness

of the ice-covered lake and
head for the bush where it
would be even more dan-
gerous to bring him into
custody. The problem was
communications. Although
the aircraft and the helicop-

ters were in radio contact
with each. other and could
pass information back and
forth, ERT members had

only small radios of limited

were left behind because of

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - AS»

_ range.
- Repeaters which would |
have boosted the range

weight restrictions on the

aircraft that carried the ERT
north to Whitehorse.

Once on the ground, the °

different teams. could. not.

_talk to each other.

Oros changed directions

' several times as the RCMP

closed in.
By. this time the fixed

was low on fuel. The heli-

copters also left to pick up °
-. more ERT members. :

It left Buday and the

-other two officers and a sec-

. ond group of three: officers.
_ without eyes in the’sky and
without the means to talk to.

each other.

The plan was still to”

contain Oros on the ice: be-

tween the two three- member

teams.

' wing aircraft left because it

' Buday and his two fellow”

officers took up position,

expecting Oros to head their’

up behind Buday and’ kill-
ing him with one shot from

« a 303 rifle.

_ way. He did, but then headed -
-into the shoreline, creeping

Oros then tried to shoot

- officer Garry Rodgers. but
_ his rifle misfired. Rodgers:

returned, ‘fire, killing Oros

with one round from his M- —

16.

ley, ‘Alberta. Following an

autopsy, Oros - was cremat-. -

ed.

In August of 1985, two

3

Buday was s buried i in r Til “

RCMP officers: flew — into.

“Hutsigola Lake where Oros
had acabin.-There, almost by _.

circumstance, they found a
human skull and a lower jaw

_and other bones. Dental re-

cords matched the jaw to the

trapper Lishy, the very-man ‘I:
“the RCMP suspected Oros
~ of killing back in 1981.

A shoulder blade was

also found and it contained —

a neat, circular hole, the

size of the dimensions of a —

.303 rifle, the same kind of
weapon that Oros used to
kill Buday.

Information | for this
courtesy of Descent into
Madness by Vernon Frolick

_and other sources.

March 18 for the ‘Tong fight

Touched by constable’ S death |

MURRAY DREILICH
THERE WAS no hesitation over the
long distance phone line last week.

“Yes, I know. I remember,” said .
Murray Dreilich of the approaching ~

20th anniversary of the March 19,
» 1985 shooting death of Constable
Michael Buday by Michael Eugene
Oros.

Dreilich, who retired asa corporal

in the RCMP in 1990, carries vivid;

memories of the day. He remembers
every March 19 and at other times
during the year.

“And when you have those events
said -

in Alberta, it brings it home,”
Dreilich of the recent deaths of four
RCMP constables there.

Buday, a dogmaster, was a mem-
ber of the RCMP’s regional Emer-
gency Response Team, and Dreilich
was one of its negotiators.

That March 19 day Dreilich

wasn’t negotiating. Instead he and
another RCMP officer were in a

small airplane above Teslin Lake,

tracking. Oros as he dragged a loaded
toboggan across the lake ice.

They were in the air before the
helicopters arrived from Whitehorse
with. the ERT members, providing
constant radio updates. But before
the team could land and get into
position to contain Oros, Dreilich’s
“plane had to turn back.

“We stayed in the air as long as
we could,” he said. “We were close
to the point whether we could get

- back or not on the gas we had.”

Dreilich has had other friends in
the RCMP who were killed in the
line of duty but Buday’s death was
the only one in which he had a a per-
sonal involvement.

“We each remember in our own
quiet way, at different times,” said
Dreilich who has: had contact over
the years with the other members of
Buday’s team.

“The incident in Alberta makes it

ROY Henry Vickers.

“all that much fresher in a way that

you don’t wish it to be,” he said.
“He was really well liked, that’s

‘for sure,” said Dreilich of the offi-

cer.
Now a provincial government
liquor licensing inspector in the
Kootenays, Dreilich’s last posting
was with the RCMP detachment in
Penticton. By coincidence, it’s also
the first posting for his daughter.
“That’s something,” said Dreilich.
“It was my last detachment and now
it’s her first.”
_ - ROY HENRY VICKERS
TEN YEARS to the day Constable

Mike Buday was shot by Michael _
_ a ‘sheep standing by themselves,

Eugene Oros at Teslin Lake,

_northwest native artist Roy Henry

Vickers visited the spot. -

He and RCMP Staff Sergeant Ed
Hill had.an idea that a commemora-
tive piece of art work would not only
recognize the sacrifice made by Bu-
day, but would provide the start to
raising the money needed for a ca-
noe journey called VisionQuest.

‘The result of their March 19, 1995

‘visit, was “Sheep Standing By Him:
“self,” a limited edition print of 150 .
copies. It was offered first to RCMP

officers who bought up the entire

_.run. The money raised through the -
. sales and from the sales of. posters
- of the print ultimately lead to Vi-

sionQuest, a 29-day journey which

began in the Hazeltons and ended in -
Victoria in the summer of 1997.
Canoes paddled by natives, po-°

lice officers and others stopped at
villages along the way in a journey
meant to heal and to educate.

“I remember the evening we spent .

in-Kitsumkalum,” Vickers recalls of
the journey. “It was a hard, long trip.
We stopped everywhere. We'd eat

and we’d dance all night.”

The title of the commemorative
print comes from the native name
for the mountains that rise: over
Teslin Lake and the imagery in the
print itself depicts the last view of
the world as seen throvgh the eyes
of Buday. But the title also contains
significant meaning to Vickers be-

"cause, he says, it speaks to Oros,

Buday and himself.

“Oros was very much a sheep

standing by himself and so was Bu-

day. He was the black sheep, called _

that by family members and he was a
dog man and that’s a pretty tight knit
group. ‘Sheep Standing By Himself’.
also became the slogan for recov-
ery and that’s what it’s all about.
I’m still recovering. Pm in my 13th
year of sobriety. Nobody should be

399

he said.

_ VERNON FROLICK.
NOT A WEEK goes by that Vernon
Frolick isn’t reminded by somebody
of the death of Constable’ Michael
Buday. That’s because his book
on Buday’s killer, Michael Eugene
Oros, entitled Descent Into Madness,
remains a popular read.

; “Sometimes it’s twice a . week it
comes up,” said Frolick. “The story
has become part of the mythology of
the north. It’s become part of B. C.
history,” said Frolick

Stationed in Terrace in the 1980s
as a provincial Crown Counsel, Frol-
ick knew both Buday and his killer,
Michael Eugene Oros. ~

“I wanted to do a story to honour

Mike Buday. And I wanted to do it -

before somebody else did something
that might have been a stupid story
of the cops rushing up there and not

getting the story right,” said Frolick. .

“I wanted to do a story that would
give meaning to Buday’s life.”

He was struck by Oros as a per-
son who could live by himself in the
vastness of the north, appearing and
disappearing when he wanted to.

“I knew people like Oros. People
who did not go to Vietnam; People

.who came to Canada to escape
’ America and escaped the work life.

They developed that alternative life
style. Oros did that,” said Frolick.
There are a lot of theories about
why certain individuals kill others or
commit other crimes. Frolick adheres
to the idea that human behaviour is
constrained by the social situations
in which they find themselves. _
“When there’s an absence of ex-
ternal limits, that’s when something

~ can happen. People lose perspective.
Oros heard internal voices. We all

have internal voices and when there
are no external limits those voices
expand. You’ve heard of the terms
“bushed’ or ‘bush fever.’ It’s ‘like

that, social isolation. And Oros lived ©

in the harshest of social isolation,”
he said.
Descent Into Madness was first

published in 1993. by B.C.’s Han-:

cock House. Frolick is in. discus-
sions with Los Angeles movie in-
dustry representatives about doing a
screenplay.

 pedr'sint?* Pah yy

a
CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD
. ff ;
The Mail Bag

Yes’ to tolerance

An open letter to:
Nathan Cullen,
Member of Parliament, Skeena-Bulkley Valley _

Dear Sir: "
' Tbelieve I have heard that you will be voting in favour
of the new and pivotal human rights legislation that was

~ introduced into Parliament. I want to say thanks for rep-
’ resenting our communities well in this issue.

I have read some letters:that have been addressed wo
you and have been published i in our local paper. Some

“describe this legislation as a “ruling against the citizens’
and families of Canada”. Well, I have been both part of _

a family and a citizen of Canada for my entire 40-plus

_ years: | am happily married ‘and my wife. and |-have two

children. So this family member and citizen ‘of Canada

wants you to know that to vote against this legislation __

would serve our nation and the planet a grave injustice.
Tam sure that you know that intolerance and i ignorance:
have lead to significant eradication of numerous societies,

. classes, sexes and practices of humans throughout our ex-’

istence. In recent history, we have apologized for the way’.
we have treated the aboriginal community .in our move to
assimilation, to the Japanese community. for interment, to

~ the female community for refusing their rights under the

charter and to the Jews for waiting too tong: to stand by
their sides.

Every person has. a right to. live their life ina man-.. ~
ner that suits them, as long.as those rights do not inflict.

undue hardship, pain or suffering : on others: I‘am not.a-,
religious man, you may have. Buessed, ‘but I am a very. :
morale-man.
I believe that i imposing my views “forcibly upon oth- a
ers is not just rude, but immoral and unjust. Thusly, hav-
ing others views forced upon me, especially “for my own

: good,” is also immoral and unjust. Iam very patient when .
- it comes to the activities’ presented by some churches. I

believe very strongly that ‘these parishes have the right
to believe, congregate and preach as they, wish, even if
don’t agree with the’ message. I find it very offensive that ;
.the feeling isn’t mutual.
A good and caring society would stand by and support, .

not judge; others in their community. Invite. them in'and

make them feel welcome.and productive. I know, from
experience, that this minority in our society also repre-

_ Sent a part of the diversity of our country and are > good
~ people. © ——

Let’s not be apologizing 50 years from: now /forn not do- ——
ing something that we’should have done today: Let's re- |

‘member that this planet has seen far.to many losses from | |

wrongful oppression. . oIn these cases no one has won.’ But.
we do all win when we show’ compassion and. tolerance

and try to learn about and ‘Support each other, rather than: o 7 _
fear the unknown:

‘That is what a healthy, tolerant and compassionate so-
ciety does. Mr. Cullen, keep up the good work, J knew a

" you were the man for the job.

Shane Neifer,
Terrace, B.C. .

[ROMP say thanks weit ah

PPG any UE
I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all of .

pofefpO

. the members and staff of the Terrace RCMP detachment,

to extend to the citizens of Terrace and the surrounding
area our sincere appreciation for the amazing public sup-
port that you have shown ‘Us during, this most difficult
time.

, The unprecedented loss of our four comrades has deep- -
ly affected not only our members and their families but. .
the citizens of the entire country. .

The many cards, notes, and heartfelt expressions of
support that we here in'Terrace, so far away. from the site
of this tragic event, have received has once again shown

' to myself and our office that the citizens of this c commu-

nity are second to none.’
While our members and their families continue to deal :

~-with the impact of this event as we go forward with our __

day to day duties we are comforted by the knowledge that
we have the support and best. wishes of the incredible;

people of our community. It remains a great privilege to.

serve you all. Once again, my sincere thanks.

Inspector Marlin ‘Degrand, no

Officer j in Charge, RCMP Detachment,
Terrace, B.C,

No more Mr. Campbell _

Dear Sir:
‘T agree with Pete Weeber in his "recent letter that we

. need to look to the future and not be stuck in the past. But
do we really want to move forward with a guy like Gor-

don Campbell at the helm?

- Let’s compare the province to something I know a lot
about which is the Canucks. Not so many years ago they .
were horrible. They had a bunch of overpaid underachiev-.

“ers like Messier, Mogilny, and Bure. Still they couldn’t

win. Then they hired Mike Keenan (who I like to compare
to Gordon). He came in and fired everybody and wiped.
the slate clean. But at the end of it all, he was still a jerk -
and they had to get rid of him too. Only then could they .
start to rebuild.
The Liberals give themselves credit. for helping the —
economy. However if you take:a closer look at how the
budget was balanced you’ll see that it has been at the ex-

"pense of the most vulnerable in our society. Mr. Campbell

went after the lowest paid workers in the health-care ser-
vices and school support staff (mostly women). He has
watered down WCB regulations in the employers’ favour
so now we have more accidents on the job and we have
more fatalities on the job (especially amongst young work-
ers). He has been responsible for closing down schools
all over the province and opening more liquor stores and
casinos. He has changed the labour laws to allow school:
aged children to work up to 35 hours a week (if they have
a four-day school week).

‘I agree we need to be fiscally responsible, but I don’t |
agree that we need to cut from the bottom up. |

In spite of the Liberal’s rosy budget promises, I per-

_sonally will not forget how the Liberals have treated the .

working class people who built this province. ’
Clay Dunsford,
Terrace, B.C.

About the Mail Bag

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address is 3210 Clinton St, Terrace, B.C. V8G 5R2.
You can fax us at 250-638-8432 or e-mail us at
newsroom @ terracestandard.com. No attachments, please.
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ne . n