Family Searches for Answers: Son’s Disappearance at Quebec Ski Resort – A Year Later
· By Robert Mitchell
Almost once a month for almost a year, Kathleen Toman has left her home in Balsam Lake, Ont., for Mont-Tremblant, Que. This weekend, she’ll make the 500-kilometre trip again, meeting her ex-husband, Chris Toman, there.
Together, they’ll try again to find anyone or anything that could help locate their son, Liam.
“Anything that would’ve happened might be a small clue,” Kathleen said in an interview. A selfie, an awkward encounter, a bit of small talk – no detail is too small.
“Every time I do go back, though, I find out a little bit more information about something. every single time.”
And yet, so far, nothing explains how her son, Liam Gabriel Toman, vanished from the ski resort in the early hours of Feb. 2, 2025.
On Friday, Jan. 31,2025,Liam,22,and two friends,Kyle Lemmings and Colin Warnock,hit the road for a long-anticipated ski weekend. As they rounded the last bend before Tremblant, the five-hour drive from Whitby, Ont., paid off.”It just opens up, and then there’s the hill with all the cabins on the side of it, and then the mountain just goes up,” Lemmings told Radio-Canada’s Enquête.”It’s a pretty big eye-opener.”
Video footage from Mont Tremblant bar
Liam Toman shot video at Le P’tit caribou hours before he went missing.
Liam didn’t return to the room that night. His friends assumed he’d crashed elsewhere, but still concerned, they pinged him again and took to the hill Sunday morning.
“I called once every hour,” said Warnock. “And then after a couple hours,I was calling him twice an hour. And I started calling him three times an hour, and 20 calls later, we’re, like: ‘OK, maybe … something is up, without a doubt.'”
By day’s end, they raised the alarm, contacting Liam’s family and the authorities.
Watch the full documentary, “Vanished,” from the fifth estate on YouTube or CBC-TV on Friday at 9 p.m.
Liam’s father, Chris Toman, remembers getting the call just before 6 p.m.
“I said, ‘We need to talk to the police.We need to talk to the resort. Like, you know, we don’t know where he is?'” he told Enquête.
A storm closed in as Chris, his wife Lara Toman, and Kathleen drove through the night and the snow to Tremblant.
“I couldn’t believe how fast, but how long it felt as well,” Lara told enquête.
‘You cannot rest’
In February, the Quebec provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), searched for Liam for 12 days – on foot and horseback, by ATV and snowmobile, with dogs and from helicopters overhead.
Kathleen Toman during one of her visits to Mont Tremblant in the summer of 2025. (Shireen Khamissa)
Accidental investigators
Within days of Liam’s disappearance, the Tomans began getting the word out. One of his childhood friends, Shireen khamissa, took charge of social media. She approached the resort about sharing her posts and was surprised when they initially declined.
Khamissa and the Tomans were disappointed and didn’t give up with the resort.
Some of the pamphlets and bracelets the Tomans take to their pop-up kiosks at Mont tremblant.(Submitted by the Toman family)
The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) investigation into the disappearance of Liam Toman is ongoing. Authorities have yet to determine if a criminal motive is involved. The disappearance is described as ”pretty rare” due to the lack of evidence explaining why Liam is missing.
“It’s crucial for the public to think the unthinkable. Any shred of information can be crucial,” said an SQ spokesperson.
‘We’ll have to keep going for Liam’
The investigation provides Liam’s mother, Kathleen Toman, with purpose, but also comes at a significant emotional cost. She describes alternating between intense activity and periods of complete despair.
“You spend so many days busy and doing and co-ordinating,” she said. “And then there’s days where you’re just crawled up in a ball and not moving. And then you go: ‘My gosh, we’ll have to keep going for Liam. Liam wouldn’t want to see me like this. Oh my gosh, he’d want me to keep fighting and keep going and looking and investigating.’ So then you focus,you focus on the fact of what you’re doing,you get up and go.”
Kathleen Toman insists that the only way she can deal with the situation is by sticking to the facts. (Marie-Maude denis/Radio-Canada)
The tomans are returning to mont-Tremblant, with the resort’s collaboration, to raise awareness and meet with authorities. Kathleen Toman acknowledges the emotional toll of each visit,especially as the one-year anniversary of Liam’s disappearance approaches.
“One year – it’s not something you want to celebrate. It’s not something you want to acknowledge, that it is indeed actually one year. But, you do want to, for Liam. you want to say ‘this has been too long. This is a year. what is, where is he, what’s going on?'”
SQ investigators will be in Mont-Tremblant village on January 31 to recieve information from the public.
Living without answers has left Liam’s mother feeling lost. “You can’t explain that to anybody, what it’s like living without an answer. You can’t even explain it to yourself. So how can you explain it to anybody else?”
“We are just at a loss. This is what it’s done to our family: we’re at a complete loss.”
The Sûreté du Québec is asking anyone who may have seen Liam Toman or has details that could help investigators to contact the SQ
