Vernon residents support 'wild boys'
Last Updated Mon, 03 Nov 2003 21:54:52
VERNON, B.C. - Residents of Vernon, B.C., have rallied behind two brothers who claim they grew up in complete isolation in the remote backwoods of the province.
Brothers surface in city, claiming to have been raised in the bush
Tom and Will Green, who have no identification, and say they have never been to school or watched television, have been put up in a hotel and given food.
The so-called "wild boys" surfaced in Vernon this summer, living in the bush and surviving on food from local residents. Vernon is in the Okanagan Valley in southern B.C., east of Vancouver. Vernon's population is about 45,000.
Tom, 22, and Will, 16, attracted the attention of local social workers, residents and politicians, including Alliance MP Darrel Stinson of federal riding of Okanagan-Shuswap. Stinson believes the brothers' story could be true.
"I spent a lot of my former life in the bush," Stinson told the Vancouver Province. "I once met a person who hadn't been out in society since 1918. We took him out in 1976 and he flipped out seeing cars and stoplights. So is it possible, you bet it is."
Two weeks ago, the two men, who believe they were born in Canada, left the wilderness. They have met with staff from Stinson's office and have been put up in a hotel and given money.
They say they were born in the wilderness and raised in isolation by their mom and dad, who they have identified as Mary and Joseph Green.
They claim their mother taught them to read, using books she bought when she would leave the wilderness.
The brothers, described as wearing dirty clothes and looking emaciated, will not say where their parents are.
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/11/03/wild031103
The best part of this entire story is that the first time I heard about it was on the cover of The Province (BC Newspaper). They had the headline, and the huge picture was of...my brother's fort when he was 14-15, that was behind Kal Store, where the boys had been living. So now everyone in BC has seen my brother's fort (complete with hotbox room, of course

