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The Current Transcript for June 22, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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We have done our research and we do think that David is in North Korea.

He is teaching England and he's doing that Kim Jong-un for their kind of intelligence group.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: David Snedden vanished 13 years ago. A 24 year old backpacking through China. He had been in constant email contact with his parents back home. The Chinese said he drowned on a track. His own U.S. government believes it but his family in Utah has done its own detective work. They say his disappearance fits a pattern of North Korean abductions. And they're convinced he has been held all these years to teach English to those in the ruling elite. In half an hour Sam Colbert brings us the story of one family's discoveries in their relentless search for a son. Also today Dion Leonard was about to run his seventh ultra-marathon through the Gobi desert when a scruffy little mongrel started trailing him, and in no time this super competitive no nonsense runner was sharing his precious water and even carrying that little mutt.

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It was just the perfect day. I had gone and made those decisions to help a dog in need and we would still win the race on that day and for me that was just the best day ever.

AMT: Well this might be the best man and his dog story you've ever heard. Finding Gobi in an hour. But we begin with a reality many Canadians are slow to recognize.

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VOICE 1: Female unconscious on a bench. No other details [unintelligible].

VOIVE 2: This is a typical intoxicated individual call. We respond and then indicate if the individual is going to the hospital.

AMT: A new study says alcohol kills more people than drugs or cars or guns and that it's become a major health crisis we'd rather ignore. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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More Canadians hospitalized for alcohol than heart attacks last year: study

Guest: Tim Stockwell, Dowsett Johnston

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Get up. Get out. Get into a great state of mind. Get on board with getting unbored. Take a dive. A ride. A paddle. Get [unintelligible]. Get [unintelligible]. Get flying. Get up. Get out and grab a Labbat Blue. Get undomesticated.

AMT: Summer officially kicked off this week and many Canadians celebrate by raising a glass of frosty beer. Let's face it a cold brew on a sunny dock seems about as true north as well Lebel Lebbat Blue. But a new study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information also known as CIHI shows that a growing number of Canadians have developed a problematic relationship with alcohol. Last year about seventy seven thousand people across the country were hospitalized due to drinking according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, that is more than the seventy five thousand who were hospitalized for conditions related to heart attack. And while the opioid crisis gripping many provinces continues to grab headlines experts warn that a looming alcohol health crisis should not be ignored. Tim Stockwell is the director at the Center for Addictions Research of B.C. at the University of Victoria. He is one of the experts consulted on this chi high study and he joins me from Victoria. Hello.

TIM STOCKWELL: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: What are the key findings of this report?

TIM STOCKWELL: The headline is what you just mentioned there that more people hospitalized for reasons caused completely by alcohol, nothing else, than people are hospitalized for heart attacks that 77000. What that report is at pains to explain however that's the tip of the iceberg, because it doesn't include an awful lot more hospitalizations that are partly caused by alcohol. So those figures don't include injuries in car crashes or from alcohol fueled violence for example.

AMT: So when you say that some of those hospitalization rates are related are alcohol related conditions what are those conditions specifically?

TIM STOCKWELL: Well they're what they call alcohol use disorders. You might in lay language say alcoholism. The direct effects of alcohol poisoning intoxication. And then there's a range of liver complaints and acute pancreatitis and liver failure or cirrhosis of the liver. Also alcohol withdrawal. People don’t understand the [unintelligible] treatments. People get admission with seizures to do with alcohol withdrawal, when they've been drinking a lot and have to for whatever reason stopped doing so.

AMT: So the numbers that are that you're saying they're hard numbers directly related you can make that clear link to those hospitalizations.

TIM STOCKWELL: The word alcohol is in the diagnosis in each of those 77000 cases for the fiscal year 2015-2016 that numbers apply to.

AMT: Who was the most likely to be hospitalized for alcohol related conditions?

TIM STOCKWELL: Males particularly young males. Perhaps that would be no surprise. It varies across the provinces and territories and there's higher rates for example in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. And some of the high consuming jurisdictions and candle's Alberta and British Columbia where the supply of alcohol is more privatized and tends to be lower in provinces with stricter controls on availability and price.

AMT: Are Canadians drinking more in general?

TIM STOCKWELL: There has been an increase, there's a big di. A lot of this is driven by the economy when there was the financial crisis just almost 10 years ago. There's a big dip. There'd been sort of a decade long rise in consumption it went down and were in good recovery. It tracks the economy pretty well, how much we drink and the provinces doing better economically are drinking more.

AMT: Do you think Canadians fully understand the harm that alcohol can cause?

TIM STOCKWELL: No. And there's good research on that. For example another condition, a hospitalization condition not in the statistics; cancer is partly caused by alcohol. There's research in Canada showing 70 percent of us are unaware of the causal connection which the World Health Organization has recognized for at least two decades. 70 percent of us are unaware that there is a causal relation to even low levels of drinking with an increased risk of cancers.

AMT: And how do you think that should be addressed?

TIM STOCKWELL: Well a very simple way would be to inform consumers. I think putting labels on all alcohol containers that give consumers information that I think they want to know. I think if you talk to people all of them first don't believe you. I mean “Alcohol, a cause for breast cancer even in low doses? Surely, why aren't we being told this? Surely cannot be true.” and is laughed off and dismissed but it is true. The science is very very strong. Cancers of the digestive system. So it's hard to imagine any other product which could get away with having that state of affairs.

AMT: You're talking about labels the way we label cigarette packages, in other words?

TIM STOCKWELL: Well, yes. And it is interesting if you do a survey and ask drinkers would they like to have labels that told them about the health effects, another item would be informing people about low risk drinking guidelines with national low risk drinking guidelines. Drink within these limits, you will reduce your risks. People think will that be good thing to put on the bottles and containers and the more people drink the more they see the labels. So it would be a perfect medium to communicate that stuff.

AMT: Well you heard that beer commercial we used at the top. What role does an advertising and alcohol play in the numbers we're talking about?

TIM STOCKWELL: There's very good evidence that particularly young people who recall alcohol adverts and like them are more likely to go on and drink, and drink heavily. There's a clear relationship between exposure for advertising and heavier consumption. The restrictions we have a very tokenistic, and in particular with all the news social media young people getting their advertising in incredibly unregulated ways. And all the rules that have applied pretty well or this good compliance on TV for things like not depicting very young people drinking, depicting people intoxicated and so forth. All those rules have flouted on the social media profiles of local bars across the country.

AMT: And so you know what we're saying according to your report more people are hospitalized for alcohol related issues than tobacco related illness or heart attacks, even the opioid issue that is so prominent right now. How do we get to this point?

TIM STOCKWELL: Well I think the difference with the opioid deaths or hospitalizations is so obvious what's caused it. It is the drug. But if it's a cancer it might have taken 25, 30 years and we're not aware of the connection. I guess these 77000 hospitalizations were pretty obvious to the doctor involved. But these things happen you know outside of public view mostly Maybe it's late at night in a dark alley somebody collapses intoxicated. We don't all get to see. It doesn't get reported and we're so familiar with alcohol that I think we take it for granted and assume it's relatively innocuous.

AMT: You made the point that in where sales are more privatized in the west you see the numbers higher. Ontario has been experimenting with beer wine and cider sales in grocery stores. We know British Columbia does that with wine. So do you see the expanding alcohol distribution as an issueÉ

TIM STOCKWELL: Absolutely, and there is good research on that. The group at my university has looked in British Columbia as privatization has been rolled out. Areas where more private stores open, where consumption increased the most and where there were significant increases in alcohol related deaths. So these things have been charted quite well internationally and in Canada. And so there are things governments in Canada doing now that are allowing things to get worse. So, relaxing and dismantling the monopolies is one thing but also not adjusting federal excise taxes on alcohol those haven't been touched for 30 years. Their real value has declined to about 50 percent of what it used to be.

AMT: Well let's talk about taxes because the Liberal government's budget bill is in the news this morning that the original budget bill that included an automatic annual increase in tax on alcohol. The provision was taken out in an amendment this week by the Senate. This is now a fight in the House of Commons. Why do you think the Senate wanted that tax provision removed?

TIM STOCKWELL: Heavy heavy lobbying by the very influential commercial vested interests, distillers Brewers, wine makers in Canada, retail sectors. The manufacturers hate the government taking some of what they see as their profits. So, the slice of pie for these multinational companies mostly has increased over the last 30 years and you know, in some ways the federal government's been asleep at the wheel they've lost revenues that could be used for hospitals schools. Public health perspective, these are taxes that affect the price of ethanol the stuff that does harm here is a fixed tax per liter. If it is not adjusted with inflation its value goes down. Australia over the last 30 years has increased their excise taxes about 75 times. Canada has not done his tool other than to adjust to the changes in GST so that is huge, billions of dollars of revenue lost.

AMT: Are we at a point where you think alcohol is a public health crisis?

TIM STOCKWELL: Well a crisis this is a very subjective term. I mean in a way it's always been... It probably was 20 years ago. It's like, is there a level of public concern? No. I mean we can all carry on as a country like we are, but quietly people are dying earlier, being injured and being sick and losing quality of life all over the country, in vast numbers. We can do something about it. You know, we say it's a crisis sounds like it has suddenly happened. It's been with us for centuries and we can manage this drug better than we do at the moment and reduce the harm that we wish to.

AMT: Tim Stockwell, thank you.

TIM STOCKWELL: Thank you.

AMT: Tim Stockwell is the director of the Center for addictions Research ABC at the University of Victoria. He reached where he was talking to us from Victoria. The study was released at midnight, today. We asked the lobby organization for the beer industry Beer Canada for comment. It declined. Spirits Canada and other lobby groups says it wants to see the study before speaking about this. We talked to some Torontonians yesterday about their relationship with alcohol this is what they had to say.

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VOICE 1: My relationship to alcohol is pretty much like a social thing. So like from going out on other people are drinking. I will pretty much drink too. I know it's kind of sounds like peer pressure but it is just one of those things that if other people are drinking I'll feel like drinking too. So I think like for Canadians especially when they're watching sports it's become like a cultural thing they just have a beer with your friends and watch the game.

VOICE 2: My relationship to alcohol would be a casual one, party one two or three, white wine weekly. It's very controlled.

VOICE 3: So my father is an alcoholic so I don't drink whatsoever and I'm also a social worker that works with homeless youth. So I try to set a good example for them as well as try to be a role model and I just have no interest in it whatsoever.

VOICE 4: I drink alcohol casually here and there with friends. I am not worried about my alcohol consumption. I think the Canadians use it very socially and with friends and you know people are probably drinking more than they should be.

VOICE 5: I think Canadians of alcohol. I think in a lot of situations it's misused, yes.

VOICE 6: In a month, I will have two beers. I hate waking up hung over. I have to be high performance at my job so.

VOICE 7: My father was an alcoholic, is. So you know I had that kind of bad relationship with alcohol growing up, pretty relaxed about it now. I drink once or twice or sometimes four times a week even on the week. It can be a big problem in someone's life if they are careful.

AMT: Well some Torontonians are talking about their own relationship with alcohol and Dowsett Johnston is an award winning writer and public speaker who focuses on alcohol policy issues. She is the author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women And Alcohol. And she's in our Toronto studio. Hi.

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Hi. Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: What are you thinking as you listen to those people who were just talking about their relationship with alcohol?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Well, you hear a real complexity of a relationship. I think that we have received with surround sound advertising a message that this is how Canadians celebrate, relax and reward. And indeed 79 percent of Canadians drink. We're very enthusiastic about alcohol. So you heard a variety including those who grown up with alcoholic parents.

AMT: And how they're wary?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: They're weary and wary.

AMT: So you've spoken publicly about your own battles with alcohol and recovery. What was that journey like for you, what did it look like?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: It looked very troubling. In my middle years when I was struggling with depression I self-medicated with alcohol. I took a sledgehammer because I grown up with alcoholic parents and took a sledgehammer to my own problems. And I'm now in my ninth year of recovery and recovery has been really a Phoenix process for me, a total re-evaluation and recreation of my life.

AMT: And we should make the point, you're a well-known journalist. You are working in in editing big editorial jobs you're functioning. And with with your alcohol problem.

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Right.

AMT: You were able to hide it for a lot of years.

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Right. I think I'm kind of the poster girl for the modern female alcoholic which is high functioning highly educated and high bottom what we call high bottom which means I didn't crack up a car, I didn't lose my house. I blew the whistle on myself and God help. And that is a very common picture right now.

AMT: Has risky drinking become normalized in your view?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: I think it's terribly normalized. And there's interesting data out of Washington saying that while the numbers of drinkers in the States for instance hasn't increased, the percentage of risky drinking binge drinking has increased 17 percent for women in the past decade, four percent for men. So, I think we're seeing a real normalized action of binge drinking.

AMT: It's interesting because the Canadian Institute for Health Information, CIHI this organization that just released this information, shows that girls in the 10 to 19 age group are much more likely to be hospitalized for alcohol related conditions than boys. What do you think of that?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: There's really interesting data on the fact that young women drink largely related to social anxiety and fitting in, a sense of fitting in. And that they actually see more advertising of alcohol because of women's magazines than young men do. So I think there's a real connection as Tim was talking about the connection between marketing and alcohol consumption. I think we've really been sold the notion that this is how we celebrate. And this is the good life.

AMT: And so as we look at this and we talk about the numbers of illnesses and hospital related hospitalizations related to alcohol, you also look at recovery. What are we learning about those who recover and how they live their lives and how their families move forward?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: There was a major national survey that came out about a month ago done by his CSA the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction. And it looked for the first time at people in recovery in Canada and the great news was 91 percent said that their lives were excellent or good or very good. And so this whole notion of a revolving door that people can't have good lives if they are in recovery is just not true. But there was a big clarion call for more treatment for and really big call about stigma. The notion that while we've done I think a great job on mental health in terms of de-stigmatization, we have it on addiction. And so we're beginning to see, with September being Recovery Month thing Canada, a celebration of what recovery looks like. In other words, we're starting to come out of the closet as I have, and talk about what recovery looks like and celebrate it. But it's early days.

AMT: And it's interesting because you talk about the support systems, because it takes a toll on entire families, huh?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Huge.

AMT: And when we talk about support if a family is there to support it can be very hard for them as well.

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Hard for everybody and they say it's like a mobile. You know one person changes and the whole family has to change. It's a family disease. It's very troubling. It takes a lot of work to be in recovery and to accept what recovery is, especially in this culture. You know I think it's a [unintelligible] culture and we know that. And walking to any social event and the first question you'll be asked is red or white. We just live in a surround sound situation as I said.

AMT: And so what more could we be doing to help people in recovery?

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: I think we need to open up a public dialogue a public health dialogue. I think we need to listen to more prominent voices. I hope I'm one. I hope there will be many others talking about what recovery looks like, that it can be a healthy life where you pay your taxes love your children and thrive. Thrive, it is sustainable attainable. So we could be doing more. I think in terms of talking about having a public health dialogue about what is the problem with alcohol. It is the invisible we tend to other, it's the rare public drunk driver, it's the rare person sitting on the park bench with a brown paper bag. We don't tend to say it's me or a person like me. And I think we have to normalize.

AMT: And you've talked about this before. The number of young girls and young women who write who are now part of this statistic.

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Right. I think it's totally alarming and you see that on campuses across the country.

AMT: And Dowset Johnston thanks for coming in.

DOWSETT JOHNSTON: Thanks Anna Maria.

AMT: And Dowsett Johnston is a writer, a public speaker and the author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women And Alcohol. She's in our Toronto studio. Let us know what you think of this conversation and what you think of this new information coming out. You can tweet us we are @thecurrentCBC find us on Facebook or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the Contact link. And stay with us. CBC News is next and then the story of an American student who disappeared in China 13 years ago. His family thinks he was abducted and is now living and working in North Korea. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. You are listening to The Current on CBC Radio 1 Sirius XM Online cbc.ca/thecurrent and on your radio app.

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'We have to keep looking': Family believes missing U.S. student abducted by North Korea

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come he was lost and she was found.

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She has this grin on her face when she is running and it made me realize that there was more to life than the rice and more to life than all of the past demons inside of me.

AMT: Well, the grin belongs to a stray dog now named Gobi and the race is a 250 kilometer ultra-marathon across the desert where they met, endurance running and enduring love. That story coming up. But first the death of an American student imprisoned in North Korea is drawing widespread condemnation as well as concern for prisoners still held in that country.

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We went for 15 months without a word from or about Otto. It was only a week ago that we were informed that the North Korean government now claims he was in a coma for almost all of that time.

AMT: That's the father of 22 year old Otto Warmbier, speaking this week. Otto Warmbier died in a Cincinnati hospital Monday after spending 17 months in captivity in North Korea. He was sent home in a coma. A funeral is being held for him today. The circumstances of his detention remain a mystery but the U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson says he holds North Korea accountable for Otto Warmbier death and demands the release of three other Americans detained in the hermit kingdom. Roy and Kathleen Snedden are watching this all very closely. Their son David disappeared 13 years ago. He is not one of the Americans on the list of people Rex Tillerson is demanding be released from North Korea, but his family thinks he should be. The Sneddon's have not seen or heard from their son since he vanished but they believe he is alive and has been living in North Korea this whole time. The CBC's Sam Colbert brings us their story.

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SAM COLBERT: Kathleen and Roy Snedden live in Logan, Utah. It's about an hour and a half north of Salt Lake City. They got married here 60 years ago and now they live together in a quiet neighborhood at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Their son David went missing in 2004. He was 24 years old and he was backpacking through China that summer along the way. He was in touch with his parents.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: He would e-mail me three or four times a week.

SAM COLBERT: David's mother Kathleen read some of those e-mails to me.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: Oh that is so David [laughs].

SAM COLBERT: This one's from early August that year.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: I am so excited to go travel. I will go lots of places with really neat sounding names.

SAM COLBERT: In that same email. David makes a joke. The humor seems a lot darker in hindsight.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: If you never hear from me again, look for my body in Western Union province of China or the yellow mountains of Hanoi. Just kidding.

SAM COLBERT: David sent his last e-mail on August 10th 2004.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: I will take a bus to hike Tiger leaping gorge. In about half an hour I'm having a great time here but nevertheless I'm excited to come home. That is all, love David.

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SAM COLBERT: They stopped hearing from them. They started to get worried but they knew that David was an experienced traveler. The Sneddons are Mormon and David had served as a missionary in South Korea a few years earlier. When he came home from that mission he was studying Asian languages in college, Korean and Mandarin and he'd gone to China that summer for Mandarin classes in Beijing. He finished those classes and was spending August traveling through the southern part of the country. But two weeks after that final email to his parents David was supposed to meet his brother Michael in Seoul South Korea.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: Michael I think called us from Korea, or e-mailed I don't remember which, and said he did not arrive.

SAM COLBERT: David was missing. Kathleen got in touch with someone at the American embassy in China.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: And he listened to me and he just laughed, you know. He said Americans go missing all the time in China, young college kids. They get in the back country and they run out of money, they meet a girl. This is nothing to be concerned about or worry about.

KATHLEEN SNEDDER: And I said, well, I am, my gut feeling. I know David well enough he's not gone off and done something stupid. He's a dependable thoughtful gracious son.

SAM COLBERT: The family waited for an answer and they got one, sort of. Chinese police concluded that David probably fell into the Tiger Leaping gorge. It's where David said he was going to hike. The local police figured he drowned in the river.

JAMES SNEDDON: We just didn't buy it.

SAM COLBERT: James Sneddon is an older brother of David's.

JAMES SNEDDON: There's no, no body no, clothing no, nothing and no evidence that that would be the case.

SAM COLBERT: The rest of the family shared in his skepticism.

JAMES SNEDDON: And as we waited for resolution Michael and I were talking on the phone, my older brother, we were kind of stewing on this and I am like: “You know Mike? let's just go. Just go find him and bring him home. This is ridiculous”.

SAM COLBERT: So James, his brother Michael and their father Roy were on a plane and over to China by September 10th 2004. It was a month since the family had last heard from David but they were optimistic about finding him alive.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: I told him not to come home without David. I've been very clear about that and I really thought they would find even bringing him home.

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SAM COLBERT: The plan was to retrace David's steps. Maybe he ended up in a hospital or a jail cell. They traveled to the city of Shoto. David had left his large backpack at a guest house there before heading to the Tiger Leaping Gorge probably with a smaller bag. The last photo they had of David was from his Beijing student ID card.

JAMES SNEDDON: We made that placards of it said [unintellilgible]. We're just kind of strapped them on our bodies and started walking around thinking maybe somebody would notice.

SAM COLBERT: They hired a guy to take them through the gorge where police said he died. And one of the first things that struck them was that the hike wasn't all that dangerous.

JAMES SNEDDON: There was no part of the path we walked that was really even remotely close to the river. And between the trail we were on and the river itself is a road. So it just seemed really unlikely that they would fall and not get help, or fall and just disappear.

A SAM COLBERT: As they were hiking, they crossed paths with another guy and asked him if he knew anything.

JAMES SNEDDON: They begin to interpret. He said yes he did see him. In fact David hiked with this man he hiked with him all the way through the gorge to Tina’s guesthouse. So we were like stunned and excited and completely relieved, like wow! We are on the right path.

SAM COLBERT: Tina's guest house is a youth hostel at the far end of the gorge. So David couldn't have died on that hike. The Sneddons continued trekking, and at guest houses and shops beyond the gorge they were finding more people who'd seen David. This would have been after he supposedly died in the gorge. They followed his trail all the way to the city of Shangri-La. And after a day of wandering the streets they happened upon a Korean cafe and showed David's photograph to the owner.

JAMES SNEDDON: And she immediately said: “Oh yeah. I remember him.” He came here two or three times and began to describe in great detail their interactions, what they would look like, what they said, what kind of food he ate. It was a strong strong strong fit for [unintelligible]. And then that kind of two or three or four block area we found, I think it was five or six sightings.

SAM COLBERT: But then the trail went cold. They checked local hospitals and police stations. They couldn't figure out where he went next.

JAMES SNEDDON: And we realized that you know, this is where he went missing. We didn't know where he was after that point and we didn't really know how to find that. And so we kind of resolved in a very painful way that it was time to go home. I will never forget the phone call with Mom, when we said we're coming back and we don't have David and she wanted to talk to us and she talked to dad and she said to Michael and... She said I want to talk to James. I want to get his opinion. And I confirmed that I think Mom we've done everything we can. I think we've achieved a purpose or I'm sorry we can't bring David home. I don't know what to tell you right now. But he went missing in the city. And we left it at that.

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SAM COLBERT: The Sneddon Family wrote a report about their trip through China. It detailed what they'd found but it didn't seem to matter much. They gave the report to the U.S. State Department but the department continued to refer to the Chinese explanation that David probably fell into the Goerge. The family went back to China the next year and the year after that.They didn't get many answers then either.

JAMES SNEDDON: I suspect a lot of the family gave up on some level. Well you know he's… maybe he's dead by now or maybe he, you know, maybe we really don't know what happened. I mean there isn't there's nothing else after that for a long period of time you know. You know, no backpack with no other evidence was found, no passports crossing the border. No. No withdrawals from his savings account or his checking account you know. So it was just nothing.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: I could not think about seeing what kind of life it could have been in China and in a China prison. Somebody pick him up and force him to do work. I don't know. It was not a very pleasant picture to me during those years.

SAM COLBERT: Seven years went by like this. And then in 2011 everything changed when Kathleen got a phone call from a man named Chuck Downs.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: I took the phone call in that chair back there, stood up and talked to him a minute.

SAM COLBERT: Chuck downs had previously worked for the U.S. Defense Department.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: And he said I have been reading about your son David. And I have a theory that your son may be in North Korea. Excuse me![Laughs]

SAM COLBERT: Chuck Downs was the director for a Washington based group that advocated for Human Rights in North Korea. His theory was that David had been kidnapped from China in 2004 and brought there. And that he might still be there, alive.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: I just thought this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. But…

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: You know the first time I tell people about David Sneddon that's close to what I hear. That's preposterous.

SAM COLBERT: Melanie Kirkpatrick is a senior fellow at a think tank in Washington called the Hudson Institute. She's an expert on North Korea and did some writing about David Sneddon's case for the Wall Street Journal.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: But if you know the history of North Korea's kidnappings of foreign nationals it's not so crazy.

SAM COLBERT: North Korea has been abducting people from other countries for decades.

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MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: There have been cases in at least 12 countries of people who have disappeared and who have been proved to have been kidnapped by North Korean agents.

SAM COLBERT: The Japanese government believes this has happened to dozens of its citizens. In some cases those Japanese abductees were forced to teach North Korean spies the Japanese language or culture. South Korea puts its own number in the thousands.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: There are two theories as to why North Korea may have abducted David Sneddon. The original theory was that they mistook him for somebody who was working along the Underground Railroad helping North Koreans escape out of China.

SAM COLBERT: Almost all North Koreans who try to escape the country go through China. But China is an ally of North Korea and their policy is to apprehend these escapees and send them back. So there's a network of people who run an underground railroad in China to try to help these North Koreans reach a safer country.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: North Korean agents are allowed to operate with impunity by the Chinese government and so they'll come over the border and they'll kidnap North Koreans who are in hiding in China. And they also kidnap the people who are helping them. This underground railroad is run by two sets of people either brokers or humanitarians, most of whom are Christian. Part of the route is in Yunnan province where David was vacationing. And he's clearly a religious man. He carries a book of Mormon which he reads every day in his hostel. He speaks Korean. Now this is very suspicious to any watchers who would have been paying attention to him.

SAM COLBERT: There's no evidence that David was part of this underground railroad, but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: The second theory though is also interesting.

SAM COLBERT: This theory says David's abduction wasn't a mistake at all.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: Here's where Charles Jenkins story comes in.

SAM COLBERT: To understand this theory we have to go back to 1965.

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SAM COLBERT: Charles Jenkins was an American soldier stationed in South Korea. He says he wanted to avoid being deployed to the Vietnam War so he abandoned his post and crossed into North Korea. He wasn't allowed to leave the country for the next 40 years.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: One of the things that Charles Jenkins was required to do in North Korea was teach English.

SAM COLBERT: Jenkins was freed in July of 2004 as part of a detente with Japan. He was released about a month before David Sneddon went missing. Some experts have speculated that North Korea was down one captive American English teacher. So they went looking for another, and they found David.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK: If you think about it he would have been the ideal teacher because of his fluency in Korean.

SAM COLBERT: The circumstantial evidence was strong though these were still just theories. But then after the family did an interview for a voice of America story about David's case in 2012, they got another call. This one was from South Korea.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: I'm actually the one that picked up the phone and I went bananas and I got Roy on immediately I said you've got to listen to this.

SAM COLBERT: The man was a professor his wife had defected from North Korea. David's father Roy says they were part of a community of defectors living in the South.

ROY SNEDDON: He said that they've been talking about a young man who would be about your son's age who is teaching English in North Korea.

SAM COLBERT: And then they got another tip from a group in Japan, that Chinese police had detained a young American and Yunnan province where David disappeared in August 2004. He then ended up in the hands of North Korean agents. And then last year, a South Korean organization came forward with new details. Choi Song Yang is the head of an association for families of people abducted by North Korea.

He told me what they found.

CHOI SONG YANG: I heard from an informant that Mr. Sneddon didn't die in China and is still alive in Pyongyang.

SAM COLBERT: He told me that his information came from a man who actually helped abduct David Sneddon. He says North Korean agents took David in August 2004 and moved him to Myanmar before bringing him to North Korea that October.

CHOI SONG YANG: It was under Kim Jong Il's special order to teach his three children the English language and about America. He told his agent to bring me an American.

SAM COLBERT: One of those children is Kim Jong un. North Korea's current leader. Choi says that David was actually spotted recently in North Korea's capital Pyongyang.

CHOI SONG YANG: He got married and had two children. Sneddon's North Korean name is Yeun Bong Su, his wife's name is Kim Un Heh. He has a boy and a girl.

SAM COLBERT: The choice says that since he came out with this information last year David and his family had been moved out of Pyongyang to a house further north to keep him hidden. It's a lot to take in, that David might be married with kids in North Korea and that he might have been the personal English teacher to the country's supreme leader. And the Sneddons are surprised this hasn't generated more interest from the U.S. State Department.

JAMES SNEDDON: They're saying he's the personal tutor of Kim Jong un. He's potentially teaching Native English to operatives for a rogue nation. Does that not worry you? It worries us. It worries me as a citizen.

VOICE: As Americans, t can be easy for us to forget just how lucky we are to live in a free and open society.

SAM COLBERT: David's case has received some attention in Congress. Resolutions passed last year in both the Senate and the house. They call on the U.S. State Department to get to the bottom of David's disappearance. Chris Stewart is a Utah congressman who helped push the resolution in the house. His son was actually friends with David.

CHRIS STEWART: You know if he's alive and if and if that's the case, and we don't know if that's the case yet, but if that were to be true then you know we have a responsibility to do everything we can to discover that and then to bring him home.

SAM COLBERT: I contacted the State Department about David's case and in a statement they told me that the U.S. embassy in China has been in regular contact with local authorities about David but “we have seen no verifiable evidence to indicate that Mr. Snedden was abducted by North Korean officials”. Congressman Chris Stewart speculates on what might be happening inside the State Department.

CHRIS STEWART: The State Department may recognize that some of the things they can do to help the Sneddon family are best done privately and without public acknowledgement, and that being the case we would continue to encourage them to do that.

SAM COLBERT: Roy and Kathleen say they received some help from the U.S. government right after David went missing. But lately they've been kept in the dark.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: Government just…it is not to their politically advantage to support this idea.

SAM VOLBERT: Especially with the American government standing off with North Korea over its nuclear program. But the Sneddons are hopeful.

ROY SNEDDON: My scenario for David's release is Kim Jong un gets his back to the wall and says: “Oh! By the way, did you know that David Sneddon is here? Would that be of interest to you?” And he becomes a bargaining chip.

[Music]

SAM COLBERT: David Sneddon has been missing now for 13 years.

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: I can vividly remember standing on the front porch of the house as he loaded everything in the car. But what I don't remember is if I walk back out and we had a big hug. I just remember waving goodbye and saying you know continue e-mailing us so we'd be in touch. And he drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Since then I've had a pause if any of my kids leave me the poor people I get hugged, so I can remember and make sure that I hugged somebody before they

JAMES SNEDDON: You know it's a huge void for me. I miss him. But I also feel, I feel like something was stolen from me, like there was a missed opportunity. Because David's a much younger brother to me, and so I knew him as a young boy. And as I began to see him grow up and as I began to see him have deep interest in the East Asia region you know similar to me and [unintelligible] foods and walking a similar path to some of the things that that I did. I was really looking forward to enjoying that adult experience with my brother learning who he was as a man. And I've never been given and that, and it hurts.

[Music]

DAVID SNEDDON: [Recording] In Do Bun Gu, Seoul, Korea, right now…

SAM COLBERT: Now this is the David Sneddon's remember he recorded this in December 2000, a few years before his trip to China.

DAVID SNEDDON: [Recording] I thought you might appreciate this tape in this Christmas season. See that I can only talk to you individually about five minutes each, on the phone. So you can have this tape to keep forever. And I'll probably want to listen to it someday when I'm on, too.

SA COLBERT: This is back when David was on his mission in South Korea. He was only allowed to talk to his parents twice a year Christmas and Mother's Day. So he made this hour long tape recording to send back to them. It stops and starts you hear snippets of David hanging out with his missionary friends, traveling on city transit, doing his mission work. In one section, he and his companion are going to visit a group of school kids, David's language teacher.

DAVID SNEDDON: [Recording] As soon as I woke up I will be pretty soon [unintelligible]. Right here they come. Hi, here are so many kids. Say hi to my mom. [Children talking in Korean] She says her name and that she is really happy to meet Teacher Snedden [laughs].

SAM COLBERT: David's parents bring me to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. It's the headquarters of the Mormon Church. Their granddaughter is serving a mission there and she takes us on a tour. The 10 acre complex comprises visitor center, ornate administrative buildings, a dome tabernacle and the imposing Salt Lake Temple. After the tour we talk on the plaza. I want to ask you first Kathleen. When I I had asked to come down to speak with you about your son David and you suggested we come here to Temple Square. Can you tell me about why you wanted to do that?

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: I wanted you to understand why members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can have peace and comfort, even though I can't see David today. We feel David is still alive.

ROY SNEDDON: I think that a person who would be in a situation like David, would in essence come up with. There's no hope. This life what does it have for me now. That would not be David's personality nor the way he would think.

DAVID SNEDDON: [Recording] Dad, you are a beautiful man. I will ..

SAM COLBERT: At the end of that tape recording, David made for his family, he signs off with a message for each of his parents and his 10 brothers and sisters.

DAVID SNEDDON: Mom thanks for love and the supports. James, congratulation to the wedding. Thanks for the tie…

KATHLEEN SNEDDON: He's out there and we need to do all we can so we can't say we stopped. We gave up. That's not saying that David will be thrilled when he's found. He may have found a life with a wife and family, be privileged enough in that crazy place but that's another issue. As parents and family, we cannot give that. We have to keep looking.

SAM COLBERT: David was 20 years old when he made this tape. If he's alive today, he's 37.

DAVID SNEDDON: [Recording]: I hope you all can like make a nice tape for me and mail it to me, as well. That will be nice. Let me know what you are doing in your life, sure you have to keep track of what people are doing and stuff like that. So, that is it. [Unintelligible] beautiful. Love you. See you in June. [Speaks in a foreign language].

[Music]

AMT: We have been listening to a documentary produced by the CBC's Sam Colbert. The Current’s documentary editor is Josh Block. Stay with us. Coming up in our next half hour.

SOUNDCLIP

Finding Gabby was one of the hardest things that I've ever done. But her finding me was one of the best.

AMT: Dion Leonard just wanted to run his race. Gobi just wanted his food. Somehow they forged a bond that carried them across rivers, deserts, mountains, through disappearances, dog [unintelligible] schemes from China to Scotland. Yes we are talking to Dion Leonard and his dog, next

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How a little dog named Gobi changed an ultramarathoner's life

Guest: Dion Leonard.

AMT: Hi I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Competitors in the races traverse 250 kilometers in seven days over rough country terrain with only a place in a tent and water provided.

VOICE 2: This is meant to easy day, but right now I don’t feel it has been that easy. Quite hard.

[Music]

AMT: On that mix it sound kind of serene but the Gobi March is no walk in the park and it is no easy run in the desert. It is an ultra-marathon that pits runners against extreme heat, mountain terrain, deep rivers and 250 kilometers of Chinese and Mongolian desert. It can be intimidating even for the most seasoned of racers. But runner Dion Leonard was ready to take it on and it wasn't just the experience he was after, he did want to win. So think about the trainin,g the focus, the determination required for all of that to happen, and then factor in a cute little dog, Gobi as she would come to be known, ran alongside Dion and she changed everything. And I do mean everything. Dion Leonard has written a book about his journey with the little dog and both are with me in our Toronto studio to share that story. And of course we do have pictures on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Gobi has great big eyes Dion and Gobi. Hello.

DION LEANARD: Thank you very much, having us on the show.

AMT: Gobi is sitting next to you in a chair curled up. Not saying anything right now, but she must be pretty good at traveling at this point?

DION LEANARD: Yes as long as she's with me she actually is pretty cool and calm and she just loves to.. She is living in the dream isn’t she? And it is certainly a remarkable journey that we've had and a bit different from the Gobi Desert.

AMT: A dog's life as they say. Okay. Well let's go to the very beginning of the story. You are in China. You are about to run an ultra-marathon in the Gobi Desert. First of all, what does that race entail?

DION LEANARD: It's a six stage, seven day 250 kilometer race. And it's also self-sufficiency. So you have to carry all of your kit, food that you need to survive the week. You're running in the most inhospitable extreme conditions in the world. Temperatures rising up to 125 Fahrenheit 52 degrees, and you are put under extreme physical and mental pressure during the week. So it's an awesome achievement whether you're at the front of the back or at the back to finish.

AMT: And what are you running over?

DION LEANARD: Sand, sand and more sane majority of times, lots of genes. In this race, it was actually quite different because there was a mountain range that we crossed as well. But lots of sand and it can be very very mind numbing at times, to be running in the same terrain. But that's all part of the challenge.

AMT: How many kilometers would you run in a day?

DION LEANARD: Basically you run a marathon every day, but one stage you run two marathons in a row. So it really is a matter of having to get up each day and knock out another marathon, pick yourself up, you got limited food because you're carrying it all, so you're actually under-nutrition most of the time throughout the race you actually only get a certain amount of water as well. So it all starts to stack up you, by the time you get to doing the double marathon you're pretty tired already.

AMT: And so, carry your own food. So six days worth of food, huh?

DION LEANARD: Yes. Basically dried eats, nuts, dehydrated foods it's awful. You know there's no buffet foods there's no shops along the way. And we don't shower either. So by the end of the week we're hungry tired and we smell pretty bad.

AMT: And smelly.Lovely lovely. Okay well. So when did you first see this little dog?

DION LEANARD: At the end of stage one I actually saw her at the campsite and she was walking around the fire and she was getting food of all of the runners that were there and I saw how cute she was. And I thought it was pretty smart that she was getting food of people as well and I just assumed it was actually a race organizers dog or someone within the race. There's this 50 odd volunteers there. And you know I didn't really think much of it but I thought there's no way I'm going to feed her. On day two of the race I make my way to the start line and actually, Gobi as she would like to be known as, looked up at me and I thought there's the dog from last night and we were just about to set off for the race. And I was a little concerned that this little dog was going to be in the way of 100 runners coming streaming through. But the start line went off and she decided that she was going to run with me.

AMT: And she just kept going with you?

DION LEANARD: Yeah. I mean 5000 meters [unintelligible] I thought she's going to peel off now and that will be enough. But we make a left and we start to go up the traverse of the mountain range and she was right by my side and she sort of had me in her eye line most of the way. And at a point I jumped over a river crossing, and it was sort of concrete man made river crossing, and I heard a barking. And yelping and didn't think anything of it because I wasn't there to think about the dog I was there to race and there was two people ahead of me already at this stage. I just kept going in about a couple hundred meters later she actually had jumped the water herself and she was by my side again and I thought Wow she's going to run you know a bit more than a kilometer or two I thought she would.

AMT: And so that night she's still with you. You got a tent; you are in a [unintelligible] aren't you.

DION LEANARD: Yes. I get to the finish line and everyone's cheering. I didn't actually have that good a day. I think I finished fourth or fifth in the rankings that day and I was a bit disappointed with things but they were cheering. And I thought: “that's really strange. Why are people cheering?” and then I realize the dog was behind me and they were cheering for me they are cheering for the dog and he runs like there's that dog. And everyone is like: “This… That dog. This is amazing.” And it was. I mean it hit me then that what I'd been through for the day she'd been through. She hadn't been fed she hadn't really had any water, I hadn't given her any that's for sure. So I then became very concerned about her well-being and of course my cold hard nature, you know the driven part of me for the race stops as soon as I finished it. And that's when our bond started to form. She came into the tent with me and lay down next to me and I started giving her the food because obviously she didn't have any of her own.

AMT: But this is a stray dog in a remote part of China. You're not quite sure about her health. And you got to, you know you've got to be in top form. What are you thinking?

DION LEANARD: Exactly. I couldn't remember if I had had rabies shot before, what other diseases she might be carrying. She's licking me and wanting to be right in my arms and she was wanting the attention and the love and all I could think about was how can I keep her away from me and you know make sure I'm hygienic for the wake as well.

AMT: And you're starting to give her food. But like again you've only got so much food.

DION LEANARD: Yeah it's very limited each day I could tell you everything that's in there. Per calories, the weight, the fat, the protein because it's all based on a specific diet that I made. So you know it's affecting me then having to give her that because it's affecting my recovery. And it wasn't just me though everyone throughout the race started to chip in to help her and I think she just thought it was a big party.

AMT: So after that first day and that first night, what happens the next day?

DION LEANARD: Day three we set off. I make my way to the start line and again I see her next to me and I think I wonder how far she's going to run with me. And it wasn't a case of me thinking “Is she going to do a couple a hundred meters or a kilometer or two?” it's “Will she run the whole stage?” And we did and that day become a really big turning point because I had to make some decisions throughout the stage to help her which also meant that I had to sacrifice trying to win the race, time wise and I had to turn back to help her. We were crossing some large river crossings and I started to enter one of those. And I got halfway through it, it was about 100 meters in length and it's up to my chest and it's rushing through at a rapid spade. There's no way that little dog could have crossed it. But I got halfway through and she's running up and down the bank and she's yelling and barking and squealing and yelping and I was like the most horrific noise that I've ever heard and it made me stop in my tracks to see what was wrong with this dog and I turned around then and realized that she wasn't going to be out across that river without my help. So you know I had a decision to make there was do I keep running and try and win the race to try and win that stage or do I turn back and help this little dog. And a lot about it, which I go into in more detail in the book, is because of my childhood and I had a very destructive and abusive and volatile childhood and upbringing that I felt the pain for Gabi that I'd felt within myself as a youth. And the reasons that I have these sort of thoughts is you're in a race and you actually it's a lot of physical preparation, but it takes you into a lot of mental darkness as well and a lot of points that you do have time to think about all of these things. And it was you know during this race that I thought about a lot of those things and Gobi just happened to be there and needing the help and I wanted to be the person to help her.

AMT: Talk to me a little bit about your childhood. You were nine years old when your dad died?

DION LEANARD: Yeah. And I had to be the person to help him. He was having an asthma attack and I had to be the person to go into the room he was calling for me to help him and see him in the state that he was in. And then to raise the alarm that would ultimately lead to him passing away, later that evening

AMT: And as you got older in your early teens, it was tough between you and your mom, huh?

DION LEANARD: It was because I soon found out very much after my father's death that he actually wasn't my father and that was that sort of brought me rock bottom again. You know not only had I experience this father figure die, and it was my father in my eyes, and then to be told that it wasn't. The relationship between my mother and I just broke down, severely broke down, and she was going through a traumatic time and you know as I get older I can understand what she was going through but at the time I was a nine year old and then teenage years that… I made the decision to leave home when I was 14 because it was the best situation really for both of us because we were just you know it was it was out of control and other things were happening as well. Other people came involved within the relationships with her and it just was extremely volatile.

AMT: But before you left home, where would you spend most of your time in that house?

DION LEANARD: Well a lot of that was locked downstairs and it was basically like a basement area that I was locked in and I was kept away from the upstairs and the family life that I'd known before my dad's death.

AMT: Your mother locked you in the basement?

DION LEANARD: Yeah. I was put down there and I had an access to leave, like a door to leave to go outside and you know there's a toilet there etc.. But that was basically it. It was a locked away situation and…

AMT: You go to school but you'd be down there when you got home?

DION LEANARD: Yes.

AMT: Why did she do that?

DION LEANARD: Well I think that there is a lot of… Obviously I was part of another relationship that she had. And I think because Gary who had died was her love of her life. And I think she saw me as the baggage from the previous relationship and she couldn't just deal with the situation of what had happened and it was something that took her a long time to get over and I bore the brunt of it. And leaving home at 14 with no money and then having to continue to put myself through school and to work as well to pay for schooling and to live in hotels, pubs, hostels, caravan, parks, whatever I could do you know, sort of made me who I am today and makes me that driven person to succeed.

AMT: I was going to ask you more about what made you run.

DION LEANARD: Definitely not the running part. Some reason I'm not actually that keen on running. I love cricket I love hockey and running has actually just been a really good mental thing for me to be able to use all that negative energy and turn it into something positive, to prove people wrong, to get out there and to be the best that I can. The great thing I ever go back to Stage 3 with Gobi and taking across the river crossings was we would end up going on to win that stage so it was just the perfect day that I'd gone and made those decisions to help a dog in need and we would still win the race on that day. And for me that was just you know the best day ever.

AMT: You say in your book that it was never fun to run but Gobi made it fun.

DION LEANARD: Yes, she actually took my mind off all of those negative things that I used and I could see her skipping along beside me and she has this grin on her face when she's running and she's just so happy to be next to me that it made me realize that there was more to life than the race and more to life than all of the past demons inside of me. And I say that finding Gobi was one of the hardest things that I've ever done. But her finding me was one of the best and it has helped me it still helps me today to deal with all of those things.

AMT: Gobi has very little legs. She is a short dog.

DION LEANARD: Yes.

AMT: And she was running with you and you run pretty fast.

DION LEANARD: She runs even faster. So at some point she would run ahead of me and then looked back at me and just wait for me as if to say “Hurry up. You know I want to go quicker. I'm having great fun out here.” She just seemed to bound along. And you're right she is. She's extremely tiny and she's put on a little bit of white. Now she's is much healthier and it's great to see a coat change. But she's very unique looking. And we don't exactly know the breed of her, but we think she's a Chihuahua mix. It's like her eyes they just encapsulate by you. It's like she's got mascara on all the time. It is beautiful.

AMT: [Laughs] I think she's sleeping right now, yes. The eyes are closed. Let's go back to the race then. Conditions continue to get tougher and harder and you arranged for Gobi to be transported in a vehicle and you keep running. What was it like for you running on those days?

DION LEANARD: So on stages four and five, and five being the [unintelligible] stage we had to as you say transport her to the finish line she wanted to run and she was devastated when I'd put her in the car on those two days and so sad. And I could see her as I'd run off worrying where I was going. She would have killed herself if we'd have to let her run with her. So, I was really really taken aback about how much that affected me on stage four when I set off that day and I had a terrible day and it all fell apart. And I think it really came to me then that I had this incredible bond with this dog and she had meant more to me than I really thought and I had time to start thinking about her and the experience that we'd already been through. And it was during that stage that I started to develop this sort of thought as to whether I could bring a home to the UK. And what was so great was actually getting to the finish line at the end of stage four and seeing her at the at the finish line run out towards me, recognized me and you know it just be so excited and run back in with me, like she'd run the stage with me and she'd come into the tent with me and collapse down and wait for me to give her some food. And I'd speak to the people at the finish line and they'd say she's been here all day waiting for you. She wouldn't move. She'd just keep looking into the horizon until you came.

AMT: Amazing, amazing. Those really tough conditions stages get even tougher. One of the leaders is a guy named Tommy. What happens to him?

DION LEANARD: On stage five Tommy and I are basically battling for the lead. As it was, I met him at a checkpoint and he's a super competitive guy. And he's you know he's a superstar in Taiwan and this is what he does for a full time job and I knew I was going to be difficult like leaving that checkpoint that we would battle to win. And that's what we did. We went out of the checkpoint and I thought this is it. Game on it's make or break time and we get down a kilometer or so and Tommy starts to really suffer from heat exhaustion for the second time in this race something inside of me made me turn around and lo and behold. I could see him stumbling around and it was like he was drunk. He was sort of swaying from side to side and he was falling into the ground with, you know on his knees. And so I had to make a decision then as to what I was going to do with Tommy and we've got these bags on our back, as I explained and I took his bag off him I gave him my water and carrying his bag in one hand. I have still got my bag obviously on my back, carrying him in the other arm. And I'm trying to get him to a big sand formation that I can see that looks like about a kilometer two kilometers away and it looks like there's some shade underneath it and I'd drag him pretty much along to there and by this stage we're very close to being out of water, the pair of us. I had still a little bit left and put him in the shade and took his shirt off and cooled him down and he was he was in a pretty bad way and I had to make the decision then to leave him with all of my water and run to the next checkpoint which was still some distance away is still a good few kilometers away and…

AMT: To get help for him.

DION LEANARD: To raise the alarm and get help and I make rational decisions to get to the next checkpoint because actually start thinking I know where that course is going and start cutting the course. And I'm like get lost in the markers and finally pick them back up and raise the alarm.And I get out to find told me and to find him in a terrible state as well. But he would like to continue the stage and he was you know he was fine and that I would find myself further ahead in the checkpoint struggling from a very similar situation because I put myself under so much pressure and giving him all of the water to drink that I put myself in serious danger of finishing. I've never been one to actually ever think that I've ever been close to death before. But you know a checkpoint later I went through a very similar situation as Tommy would and life sort of flashed before my eyes actually.

AMT: So when he got to the end you saw Gobi…

DION LEANARD: Yes. That nearly brings tears to my eyes now thinking of it. She just came running out. And again they said to me that she'd been sitting in that heat all day just looking at the horizon, waiting for me and it just it made me cry. I mean I'd been through so much during the day with the race, with Tommy, myself, my own situation. And then to see her it just cemented the bond even more and just put an end to an incredible day of things that happened.

AMT: And is that when you knew she was your dog?

DION LEANARD: Yes. I had already spent a lot of that day with her when the dramas were happening. Thinking about Gobi and that really became the point then that I was going to bring him to the U.K.

AMT: And by this time Gobi is a star. Because people have been posting, you're not posting but everybody else is. And everyone wants to talk about me.

DION LEANARD: Yes. the story went all around the world and I flew back to Edinburgh and I actually just set up a crowd funding page and someone from the Daily Mirror in the U.K. rang me and said can we do a piece on your crowd funding page. We think it's a beautiful story, trying to raise money to bring go behind. And the only reason I actually set the crowd funding page up was because some of my tent mates and some of the people over running the rice said to me we'd like to chip in. We've seen the bond that you've formed and we'll give you 50 bucks and try and at least make it a little less costly for you. I knew it was going to be an expense. But the story went viral after it was in the paper. All the papers and all the press started to ring and say this is a beautiful story we want to cover it. So Gobi then became..She went round the world once then with all of the fame in the media.

AMT: But nothing's easy Gobi goes missing.

DION LEANARD: Nothing's easy. I received a phone call to say Gobi has gone missing and I was devastated. I felt sick and I didn't know exactly what to do. I didn't know who to get involved with. I didn't know how I was going to find her again and I was concerned for her safety and well-being and it was incredibly [unintelligible] and I could not, you know I just couldn't function and I had to make the decision to go back and to find her. I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't have said I'm going back to do whatever I can to find her.

AMT: So you find her because it's not easy to bring a dog to the U.K., and it's not any easy to get the dog out of China. There's all this intrigue that goes on.

DION LEANARD: Well was missing for more than 10 days. And that's our best bet on how long we think but we think it could be longer and we weren't exactly sure of the real details that were told to us in terms of when she went missing. But it was a real rollercoaster ride. There was lots of things happening behind the scenes with death threats, money threats, people going to steal Gobi, people coming to my hotel room and threatening me and others. So much more to the story than we've actually spoken about before, and it was never really crossed my mind as to when we were going to get out of China because I just times just didn't think it was going to happen. And of course language is always a problem as well and things just take time and a difficult process.

AMT: How long did it take to get out of China in the end?

DION LEANARD: It was six months from the race finishing, to me and gave me walking through the door in Edinburgh. It was only until we drove over the hills and I could see City of Edinburgh in the distance that I thought “We'd done it”. The promise I had made to her in the desert I had kept and we finally were there.

AMT: What do you think it is about this little dog that touches people so much?

DION LEANARD: I think that there's so much sad and bad news in the world that people are looking for the inspirational heartwarming enjoy joyful story and they see the sacrifices and the dedication that are put into such little furry dog and stray dog that I think that they it brings happiness to people. And we've had so many messages of support from people all around the world that are watching this story and have been through the ups and downs of it all. And they are just incredibly loving and loyal to Gobi in her story and it's so beautiful to see.

AMT: Why do you think she chose you?

DION LEANARD: I wish I knew the answer to that. And that's one of the things that I know she knows. But I hope it's you know hope by sharing her story it raises awareness for other dogs and animals in need. And maybe there's another reason for it. I've never really believed in Buddhism. But after living in China for four or five months I actually think that that past life connection my play some part in it because our bond is stronger than just a normal man and dog situation that I've had before. So I think there's more to this story and there's probably more to the journey yet with her.

AMT: Dion Leonard and Gobi, thank you.

DION LEANARD: Thank you so much.

AMT: Well if you're wondering, Dion Leonard finished second in the Gobi March last yeae, came away with the bigger prize of course, the dog, the puppy. Dion's book is called Finding Gobi and he and Gobi join me in our Toronto studio and we do have pictures of their visit cbc.ca/thecurrent. Check them out. Piya Chattopadhyay, Did you see Gobi?

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: I saw a picture. Don't go all soft on me. She is cute.

AMT: She is okay. Okay fine okay. Back to covering war or something. Okay fine. Piya Chattopadhyay host of Out In The Open here with me today. You didn't get to meet Gobi but now you are hosting The Current tomorrow, what are you doing?

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well Anna Maria, you know when you go to someone's place you go to the bathroom, washroom. And either on the side of their bathtub or an extra sink or on a shelf, you see a razor and most people’s homes?

AMT: Too snoop.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: You look around, okay you see that right.

AMT: Yeah.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Razor it's like this ubiquitous thing that most of us have in our homes. It has been a disrupter many times in the history of the razor. So, tomorrow we're going to talk about that. And the newest disruption that the razor is causing.

AMT: Interesting. Can you give me a hint? Like a disruption on all lots of levels.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: I'll say Harry's the dollar shave club, those are your hints. Okay. We're in talk about it tomorrow.

AMT: Okay.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Okay speaking of disrupters and disruption you're off the air here, on The Current today's your last day but we're going to hear you throughout the summer on a program called The Disrupters, the best of what we have done all season long on The Current with disruptions. So we will be looking at what will be going back and looking at some of the big disruptions that we've looked out over the over the season. Like individual things and even personal moments of disruption. How something has changed someone's life. And interestingly enough that we talked to Chris Kutarna at the very beginning as he wrote a book talking about how we're in a second renaissance and this is a very disruptive time for the world politically. He mentioned the whole Trump thing. And at the end of that interview which is how we started The Disruptors he talked about the need for adaptation. And adaptation is what we're going to look at next season.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: And Disruptors is Fridays at…

AMT: 9:30.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Okay.

AMT: Okay. Piya Chattopadhyay. Thank you very much.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: See you tomorrow.

AMT: I'll be listening. I want to know more about razor's. Okay. And the fact that you're looking on and checked my bathroom next time you're visiting. Okay. That is our program for today stay with Radio 1 for Q. On today's program Tom power talks to poet Eileen Myles. She has been writing since the 70s she's published 19 books until about two years ago she's been under the radar she's now found a new audience and a new generation of feminists where they have found her. A reminder if you've missed any part of our show today including Gobi. You can download the app free from the App Store or Google Play. And we want to thank everybody who's worked on The Current this past season it's been a good season very intense. Here are some of the people who made it happen this week. Idella Sturino, Donya Ziaee, Howard Goldenthal, Ines Colabrese, John Chipman, Lara O'Brien, Shannon Higgins, Julian Uzielli, Sujata Berry, Kristin Nelson, Karin Marley, Alison Masemann, Liz Hoath, Samira Mohyeddin, Willow Smith, Eunice Kim, Pacinthe Mattar and Graeme Steel, filling in as writer this week. Our intern is Ramraajh Sharvendiran. Special thanks to all of the CBC Network Producers who help us: Mary-Catherine McIntosh in Halifax, Susan McKenzie in Montreal, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Michael O`Halloran in Calgary and Anne Penman in Vancouver.The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Lisa Ayuso is our web producer, Ruby Buiza is our interactive producer. Transcriptions by Rasha Shehata. Our technical producers are Gary Francis, Jennifer Rowley and Mitch Stewart. Our documentary editor is Josh Bloch. Senior producers: Richard Goddard in Toronto, Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar. We move into summer programming Monday Mike Finnerty starts us off. I'll be back with the new season of The Current, on Labor Day. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, thank you for listening to The Current.

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June 22, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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