Search teams deployed after woman goes missing from Saik'uz First Nation near Vanderhoof, B.C.

Police and search and rescue crews in central British Columbia are looking for a woman who has been missing from the Saik'uz First Nation reserve for more than two days.

RCMP say Chelsey Amanda Quaw, 29, walked away from a residence on the reserve at around 2 a.m. PT on Wednesday. Saik'uz is located around 10 kilometres southwest of Vanderhoof and around 85 kilometres west of Prince George, B.C.

Mounties say family and friends are concerned for Quaw's well-being, as they consider her actions out of character.

"We're all just kind of hanging on here," said Quaw's aunt, Tamara DeLong, in an interview Thursday with CBC News. "It's a very scary situation to be in.

"It's so not like her to just be gone."

DeLong said Quaw had been living in Houston, B.C., about 170 kilometres to the west, but moved to Saik'uz about three weeks ago to stay with her father and two siblings.

DeLong said Quaw was at her father's home at the time of her disappearance.

"He thought she was just going out to have a cigarette and that she would come right back, and she just didn't come back," DeLong said.

She said Quaw's father "doesn't know where she would go in the community, because she didn't really go anywhere in the community."

Search and rescue crews were deployed the same day Quaw went missing.

"It's pretty dense woods in the areas that they have searched," DeLong said, who added that drones and a helicopter with an infrared camera were being used in the search.

RCMP describe Quaw as Indigenous, with brown hair and brown eyes. They say she is five feet, 10 inches tall, weighs 120 pounds and might be wearing blue jeans and a purple winter jacket.

Anyone who has information about Quaw or her whereabouts is asked to contact the Vanderhoof RCMP at 250-567-2222.