Atsumi Yoshikubo

Over the next ten months, police continued searching for the body they expected to find, using areas she may have visited for training exercises. On August 31, 2015, a hiker found some of her personal effects, along with human remains, in a wooded area north of the city. The RCMP confirmed that the items belonged to Yoshikubo, and began to identify the DNA from the bone fragments. In April 2016 they were matched to Yoshikubo, and the investigation has been officially closed.

At the beginning of September 2015, the RCMP announced that a hiker in an area off the Ingraham north of the city had found personal effects that were confirmed to be Yoshikubo's. Along with the effects were human remains. However, the agency said, it could take months of forensic testing before it could be determined whether or not those remains were hers. In April 2016 the RCMP confirmed they were, and announced that the case was closed. Since only bone fragments were left, they would not be able to perform an autopsy.

Around midday on October 22, 2014, a passing motorist saw an Asian woman walking north along the Ingraham Trail on the outskirts of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Several days later, after seeing stories in the local media that Atsumi Yoshikubo (吉窪昌美 ) , 45, who had been visiting the city from her home in southern Japan, had gone missing, she reported the sighting. It was the last time she was seen alive.

Unaccompanied, Yoshikubo arrived in Yellowknife from her home in the city of Uto, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, on October 17, 2014, a trip she had arranged through a tour operator in Toronto. She checked into the Explorer Hotel, the city's largest, for a week's stay. After doing so, she asked if she could book a seat on an aurora tour and was told they had shut down for the season.

In the absence of an organized tour—the way 95% of Japanese visitors see Yellowknife; the rest generally come in groups—Yoshikubo apparently set her own itinerary, keeping to herself. She had travelled alone before, and it is not unusual for Japanese women to do so. However, Japanese women who travel unaccompanied to popular tourist destinations typically congregate informally with other tourists when they get there; Yoshikubo, though, continued to keep to herself.

[A]s I drove past her[,] I thought it might not be the best idea for her being alone." She had considered turning around and going back to offer help, but decided against it. "I thought, it was only 11:30 a.m., she'll be OK ... She looked like she was sightseeing and it was close to zero, it wasn't freezing cold, and her pink coat was knee-length and she had on mitts and a hat—she was dressed for that temperature.

There was some speculation about why Yoshikubo might have chosen to die by walking into the bush around Yellowknife. Simon Hatcher, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa, said that most long wilderness sojourns are a form of temporary suicide, from which people return feeling better. "People who are suicidal can have this fantasy where they can have a temporary escape—a temporary suicide," he told the National Post. "And maybe that way they will stand out, and somebody will come along and save them. Maybe this was some form of this woman testing fate."

The disappearance and search became a national news story, with five Japanese news outlets flying crews to Yellowknife to cover it for audiences in their country. There were concerns that the incident could result in less Japanese tourism in the city. Of the 60,000 Japanese who had come to Yellowknife to see the northern lights since 2008, she was the first one ever to be reported missing, according to the country's consulate in Calgary.

Since the early 1990s, Yellowknife, capital of Canada's Northwest Territories, has become a popular destination for tourists from Japan. Many come to see the northern lights; while it is locally believed that Japanese folklore holds that a child conceived under them will enjoy good luck and good health, this is an urban legend resulting from a joke on an episode of the American television series Northern Exposure. Although Alaska and Scandinavia are also attractive for their auroral displays, Yellowknife is a particularly desirable location for Japanese aurora tourism due to its generally flat and undeveloped surrounding terrain and predominantly clear (albeit cold) weather during its long winter nights. It is estimated that 20% of the city's tourists come from Japan; many hotels publish their restaurant menus in both Japanese and English.