Mario Chouinard was 34 years old when he disappeared on October 15, 1991, while hunting in the ZEC Festubert area of Quebec. The male hunter was last seen in the controlled harvesting zone associated with Senneterre, in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region; the official national missing-person record further identifies the location as being in the municipality of Clova. What began as an ordinary trip into a designated hunting area became a disappearance that would remain unexplained for decades.
According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Canada’s Missing database, Mario was seen for the last time while hunting somewhere within ZEC Festubert. After that sighting, there is no documented contact from him in the national case summary—no later confirmed sighting and no communication that publicly explains where he may have gone after entering the hunting area.
At the time he vanished, Mario was described as approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing about 161 pounds, with a slender build and a light or fair complexion. He had long black hair and brown eyes. Investigators also recorded a scar on the right side of his chest and noted visible missing teeth, details that could help distinguish him from another person of similar appearance. His clothing and belongings provide some of the most specific surviving details of that day. He was reported to have been wearing white boots, blue denim jeans, a blue hooded denim coat, and a baseball-style cap. These descriptions have remained part of the information distributed to the public in the hope that someone who encountered Mario, saw a person matching his appearance, or came across clothing or personal effects in the area might recognize their significance.
The setting of Mario's disappearance is important to understanding how difficult the case could become. ZEC Festubert is a controlled hunting and fishing territory in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, and its present-day administration describes it as a vast territory for which detailed maps and navigation resources are provided to visitors. The area is associated with outdoor pursuits including hunting, fishing, canoeing and camping, and the ZEC maintains maps divided into numerous sectors to help people navigate the territory. Mario disappeared there in mid-October, during a hunting outing, but the publicly available national case file does not identify what animal he was hunting, whether he had entered the area alone or with companions, what route he intended to follow, where he was expected to return, or whether a vehicle, firearm, hunting equipment or other belongings were subsequently recovered. It likewise does not give a public narrative of the original ground searches or describe any particular evidence discovered afterward. Those missing details leave the final known event strikingly simple: Mario went hunting in ZEC Festubert, was seen there on October 15, and then vanished from the documented record.
Responsibility for the case is identified through the Vallée-de-l'Or MRC detachment of the Sûreté du Québec, under case number 144-911016-004. Mario's disappearance is also recorded nationally by Canada's Missing under reference 2014001767, preserving his identifying information and the circumstances of his last known whereabouts so that information can still be compared with future tips or discoveries. The national record asks anyone with information to contact the investigating police agency and also provides Crime Stoppers as an anonymous reporting option. More than three decades after that October hunting trip, the essential mystery remains centered on a very narrow set of established facts: a 34-year-old hunter entered the ZEC Festubert area in the Senneterre/Clova region, was last seen there on October 15, 1991, and afterward disappeared without a publicly documented explanation. The available official record does not identify a confirmed sequence of events beyond that point, leaving unanswered whether something happened to Mario in the wilderness, whether someone encountered him after his last known sighting, or whether evidence still exists somewhere that could clarify what occurred. In overview, the disappearance of Mario Chouinard is an enduring Quebec missing-person case defined by a remote hunting setting, a detailed physical description, a clearly established last-seen location and date, but very little publicly released evidence explaining what happened once he was no longer seen or heard from.Last Seen: Oct 15, 1991
