Cheers and applause greeted the search and rescue team made up mostly of Houston residents who found a missing six-year-old girl south of Burns Lake Sept. 22.
And there was an extra cheer and louder applause for Michelle Dykstra, the team member who carried six-year-old Oaklynn Schwedder out to her waiting parents Gail Skin and James Schwedder.
The six-year-old, who is non verbal, wandered away from her family home in the Southbank area across Francois Lake the late afternoon of Sept. 19.
The team received the recognition from an appreciative gathering of community members and others.
"It was just absolutely amazing. It was such a God thing," Dykstra told the gathering of the moment when Oaklyn was discovered.
"We missed that spot and we just finished our grid pattern and then we knew there was that corner that we didn't check. And so we were tired and we knew it was going to get dark. And our batteries are almost dead," she said in the Facebook (now Meta) live video.
"We had one phone already dead, two more were almost dead and we just we just thought like no, we gotta check that, we gotta check that because the whole day we were just praying the whole time like just God just let her show her to somebody. Like bring her out wherever she's hiding, just bring her out."
"We heard the call to everybody come in and we were so bummed and then we got all up into one spot at the top and she made that little sound and it was just amazing," Dykstra continued.
Houston Search and Rescue team leader Glen Franz also used the word amazing in describing the moment of discovery following and extensive search which used a grid pattern.
"But it's just amazing that, that we went back to that area and there she was, and she was, she was walking around, we, we saw her down there and she was still walking towards us."
"We gave her some water and a new shirt and put some socks on her and then Michelle carried her all the way out," he said.
Search experts believe Oaklynn, who was said to like curling up in small places, most likely moved around the area.
Leading up to her discovery, searchers became increasingly worried as temperatures were beginning to drop at night.
More than 600 people ranging from search and rescue teams to volunteers turned out to look for the girl in what has been described as one of the largest searches of its kind in the north.
Two Wet'suwet'en clan members raised more than $3,600 and with the money purchased gas cards to help defray the expenses of volunteers who travelled to the area to take part in the search.
The crew members who found Oaklynn are also to receive Skin Tyee Nation hoodies.
