Sitting on a talus slope above a small unnamed lake, Gary Ferguson pauses en route to Becker Lake, the site for the first scattering of Jane's ashes on this trip. It had rained the night before, and he had overshot the trail. Tired and disappointed to have missed an evening with his friends, he woke up early and made the final trek to the alpine lake under clearing skies.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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For Jane Ferguson's 49th birthday in May 2004, she and Gary went canoeing on the Smith River in Montana. A sudden blizzard took them off the river and into the shelter of the forest, where they built a fire and waited for the storm to pass.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Gary Ferguson

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Gary and Jane Ferguson had been married for almost 25 years, and they had been canoeing together for nearly 17. In August 2000, they went on a trip with friends down the Hood River in Canada. Five years later they took a vacation that included a course in swift-water canoeing techniques in Ottawa. While driving home to Red Lodge, Mont., Gary and Jane took a brief detour to paddle the Kopka River, 140 miles north of Lake Superior.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Family photo

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Gary Ferguson kneels in the 17-foot canoe that he and Jane took down the Kopka River in central Canada. A few weeks after the accident, the canoe was retrieved by another paddler from the river and brought back to Red Lodge, where it sits in Gary's front yard.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Gary Ferguson greets friends at the entrance of the Cafe Regis in Red Lodge, Mont. Jane Ferguson and two partners opened the restaurant in 2002 which is housed in a historic grocery store just west of the town's main street.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Sitting at a window table with Martha Young at the Cafe Regis, Gary Ferguson is overcome while talking about Jane. Martha and Jane were best friends. When Martha heard that there had been an accident on the Kopka River, she immediately flew to Canada to be with Gary.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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At the end of the day, Gary Ferguson trades his hiking boots for sandals and starts to cross Sierra Creek just above Green Lake, located in the heart of Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. His camp that night was in a small meadow beside the lake.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Gary Ferguson planned his journey weeks in advance, organizing meals that would be easy to carry and prepare. Dinner often meant boiling water to prepare dehydrated food. In the absence of any place to sit, the ground was enough to rest upon after a long day on the trail.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Gary Ferguson scouts a tree to hang his food out of reach of bears. His route from Red Lodge, Mont., to the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone crossed some of the wildest and most remote country in the Lower 48.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Steve Muth tends a small campfire on the rocks above Becker Lake while Martha Young and her brother, Kent, huddle as night begins to fall. Temperatures dropped into the 20s, and the friends woke the next day to find their campsite covered in frost.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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At Becker Lake, Gary Ferguson gathered his friends under a spruce in a ceremony to honor Jane before scattering her ashes. Martha Young, who had hiked to the lake that morning, sits beside him. "This is going to be hard," Gary said, "but I'm glad you guys are here."

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Using his mother's silver spoon, Gary Ferguson scatters Jane's ashes in the northern edge of the Lamar Valley at Yellowstone National Park. He chose this site because it was near the park's historic buffalo ranch, where Jane spent eight years teaching schoolchildren about the local ecology.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Gary Ferguson stops on a ridge during his hike from Red Lodge, Mont., to the Lamar Valley. He backpacked the 100 miles mostly cross-country, navigating with a compass and map, only occasionally following established trails.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Near the end of the trek, Gary Ferguson relaxes before fixing supper. "I'm not the same as I was when I left," Gary said at the last scattering in the Lamar Valley, "but maybe I'm more of who I was four-and-a-half years ago before Jane died, and it's been a real feeling of coming home."

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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After scattering Jane's ashes at Becker Lake, Gary Ferguson's friends, Rand Herzberg and Janet Gale, stayed with him. One afternoon, Janet slipped down a steep slope above Otter Lake and broke her ankle. Because of their remote location in the wilderness, Gary needed to hike out to Cooke City, Mont. to get help. He gives her a goodbye hug as she soaks the injured foot in a stream next to the spot where she and her husband Rand would camp that night.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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After restless night in Cooke City, Gary Ferguson was eager to get back into the wilderness. He was driven to a trail head by an acquaintance and put in an easy day before making camp above Wolverine Creek. Once he set up his tent, there was time to take a dip in the water and relax in the sun.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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Gary Ferguson and his friends set up their stoves and start fixing dinner on a rocky ledge beside Becker Lake. That afternoon they had caught 16 trout for Jane's favorite camp meal: grits, scrambled eggs and fried fish.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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