Recent exploration, however, was jump-started by another of these minuscule steps. By 2017, cave cartographer Dennis Mitchell had amalgamated 40 years of survey data. In 2019, when a short new extension was found, the maps showed it overlapping a passage in the neighbouring system. Called NoWhere Land, it was seemingly a dead end. But within it was a place where loose sediments had filled a limestone tube, remnants of the waters that carved these tunnels which had drained over the millennia. John Lay and Franck Tuot had taken up the mantle of leading the exploration effort by this time. Over several trips, their teams dug through the sediments to prove the physical connection between the systems. The connection was named “The Great Escape,” referencing its likeness to a tunnel under a prisoner-of-war camp. The combined ARGO system was now 17,101 metres long and 400 metres deep, the second-longest cave in Canada after Castleguard Cave. Three caves were now two. Furthermore, its passages overlapped and, in some cases, were quite close to its neighbour cave. A connection was sure to be there, waiting to be illuminated.

Dr. Paul Griffiths was a young caver when the various entrances to the system were discovered in the early 1980s. Now a cave and karst scientist in B.C., Griffiths has studied the area’s geology and unique elements of this incredible resource, formed within 250-million-year-old limestones of the “Quatsino formation.” Only one to two per cent of the land in the region is in karstic rocks, but the area drainage is a major part of the headwaters of B.C.’s Tsulton River. Hydrological tracing shows the significance: “The water circulating through the ARGO system is an important factor to downstream ecosystems all the way to the sea,” says Griffiths. Furthermore, the area’s caves are a habitat for diverse terrestrial and aquatic species, like the Quatsino Cave amphipod. “Every part of ARGO has life,” remarks Griffiths. The kind of troglobitic life forms in caves with no eyes are a special component of evolution. A bone pile in a well-guarded location contains 50 species, including evidence of the extinct giant short-faced bear.

Bartlett, Peterson and Jacobsson returned on Aug. 10, 2024. Not only to complete the rope traverse but also to take the measurements required to prove the connection between the caves physically. Using a custom laser device to measure the extent of the twisted passages, they painstakingly surveyed the link between the two caves. Two caves were now one, and the ARGO system officially became Canada’s longest cave at 25,450 m in length. This podium was held by the world-renowned Castleguard Cave for 56 years, a testament to the challenge and potential of underground discovery.