Shortly after that, Stevens’ son Jacob, 12, heard a volley of gunshots from down in the valley. Corrections officers at FCI Ray Brook were training at their range. Jacob asked what the sound was.

“It’s a 21-gun salute for Paul,” retired DEC Forest Ranger Captain John Streiff said.

The group was there to remember Australian Army Capt. Paul McKay, a 31-year-old from Adelaide in the Royal Australian Regiment who walked up Scarface Mountain in the snow, on New Year’s Eve in 2013, to die.

McKay had returned from Afghanistan two years prior and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was a battle captain at a command center, making decisions in high-intensity situations.

From left, Australian Defense Force Major Mathew Stevens, Saranac Lake Police Sgt. Luke Cromp and Saranac Lake Mayor Jimmy Williams raise flags from half mast on Anzac Day, Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

McKay flew to New York, checked into a hotel in Saranac Lake under the fake name “Ben Franklin,” sent an email to his father and walked along the railroad bed to Scarface Mountain. After his father traced the IP address from the email to Saranac Lake and called the village police, there was a two-week search by police, forest rangers and volunteers. Now-retired forest ranger Scott van Laer found McKay’s body while searching the mountain near his home on a day off.

There’s still questions about McKay’s death that haven’t been answered — mainly, why did he choose Saranac Lake? McKay’s mother Angela still doesn’t know why.

“We have no idea why our son, Paul, chose Saranac Lake — but we believe he chose very wisely,” she wrote in a social media post on April 19.

Stevens said the strongest connection friends and family could think of was that he served with members of Fort Drum’s 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan.

But the real reason may never be known. While that mystery persists, Stevens said so does the memory of McKay.

Australian Defense Force Major Mathew Stevens stands at a memorial on Scarface Mountain where Australian Army Capt. Paul McKay died in 2014. On Anzac Day, an Australian day for soldiers and veterans on Tuesday, he climbed up with several local village members and forest rangers to pay their respects to McKay. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

“They say as long as you’re talking about somebody they’re not passed,” Streiff said.

He kept a collection of items related to the search for McKay in his office and left them to the office when he retired. These items are now displayed in a shadowbox in the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Ray Brook offices across the road from Scarface Mountain.

“It’s moving to know that people care that much,” Stevens said.

He said it means a lot to the Australian military, and especially Angela, that Saranac Lake keeps this tradition.

Three hours earlier, the group had gathered with a larger crowd at the WWI Veterans Memorial Park on the corner of Church and River streets for a sunrise Anzac Day ceremony, where they laid a wreath, raised American and Australian flags from half mast and played the national anthems from both countries.

Forest Ranger Captain Kevin Burns gives Australian Defense Force Major Mathew Stevens a ranger patch as they speak at a memorial on Scarface Mountain where Australian Army Capt. Paul McKay died in 2014. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Anzac is an acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The day is similar to Memorial Day or Veterans Day in the U.S. and has been held on April 25 since 1916.

Saranac Lake Village Mayor Jimmy Williams, a veteran of the U.S. Navy himself, said he likes the sunrise ceremony, because it takes a very small sacrifice from everyone who attends to show respect for the dead.

“It creates an intimate moment separated from the rest of our lives,” he said.

It was a tough speech for Williams and it took him several beats to continue speaking. He said he served with Aussie and Kiwi soldiers.

He said days of remembrance should include those “still in the fight” internally and those who lost their lives outside of “war actual.” For many soldiers, the battle does not end when the treaty is signed, he said.

“It is a living creature that becomes a part of each person who participates,” Williams said.

He said McKay’s death made the hardships of war real in Saranac Lake. Stevens said it had a big impact in McKay’s home country as well.

“His death, his suicide … made international news. The Australian army had to stand up and actually answer to some questions,” Stevens said.

And the military had to reevaluate its approach to mental health and suicidal ideation. Stevens said this was a “turning point.”

In two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, 46 Australian soldiers have died in battle and 1,600 active soldiers and veterans have died by suicide.

Stevens said whether it was McKay’s intention or not, he brought recognition to the issue that had been pushed to the side for many years. He added though there are plenty of veteran nonprofits, there is still work to do.

“It’s not the Australian way to ask for help,” Stevens said.

While stationed in Washington, D.C., Stevens said he is participating in a Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk to fundraise for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. He wore a shirt on Tuesday he said he will print the names of McKay and two of his own soldiers on for the walk.

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Invisible scars

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On the way up, village officials, Australian military and forest rangers talked about a lot of things on the trail, but there was one topic that was unusual — suicide.

For many of them, they knew people who have died this way. For the forest rangers, there is a fresh memory they are still mourning. Rangers current and retired said they knew Forest Ranger Captain Chris Kostoss well. Kostoss died by suicide in Lake Placid in May 2022. Streiff said Kostoss had been part of the search for McKay and that he had worked a lot on mental health for forest rangers, who attend to most deaths on state lands.

“He was trying so hard through his years in his career to do things for the rangers,” Streiff said. “The guy with the eternal smile took his own life.”

Van Laer said that usually, the walks he takes up to McKay’s memorial on Anzac Day feel good, poignant. It was different this year — difficult, he said.

“It hit me today,” van Laer said.

McKay’s parents came to Saranac Lake a year after their son’s death and van Laer led them up to the site. He stood back in the woods while they spread his ashes and stayed by the site of his death for around an hour.

Stevens said McKay’s father John died earlier this year. He also said Angela has “been fighting the good fight” in terms of veteran suicide. She’s done a lot of volunteer and advocacy work, he said.

Angela asked that he do several things on his pilgrimage here — make sure the memorial was in order, say a prayer and she asked him to never do what her son did. Stevens said he couldn’t promise her that. It would be a lie. But he promised her he would try.

He said he feels echoes of McKay’s life in his. Their paths never crossed, but they worked with the same people, both served in Afghanistan and were both in the same unit at different times.

“A lot of Australians that I’ve spoken to who have PTSD, and I’ve got PTSD myself, you’ve got this overwhelming feeling of wanting to just disappear into the wilderness,” Stevens said.

Stevens looked around at his family — his wife Allison; his daughter Lilly, 9, his son Jacob and their two-year-old mini-dachshund Frankie — and said when he feels like the world would better without him he sees his family by his side.

Streiff said if McKay had lived longer, maybe he would have found a reason to stay alive but he hoped the soldier found peace on Scarface.

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Searching

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The sun only peeked through for a moment, resting on van Laer’s face as they stood by the place where he found McKay’s body. Van Laer lives at the base of the mountain. While there were 100 people involved in the search at its height, two weeks on it had wound down. But he had a day off and felt compelled to keep searching.

He went out on his own, following leads searchers had gathered through interviews and walking a large curved path in the woods with around a foot and a half of snow on the ground.

“You’re not going to find him from your couch,” van Laer said he told himself.

Near the summit, he came to a rocky outcrop and found McKay, who had dug a grave for himself next to large boulder.

Two benches with memorial plaques honoring McKay were built by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, one standing at the village World War I memorial and the other on Scarface Mountain trail.

Last year, van Laer attended to a fatality on Scarface — a U.S. veteran who had been a military captain died of a heart attack while hiking. The man’s wife, also a veteran, had been performing CPR for a long time but her husband died.

Van Laer told her about McKay, hoping the story of another military captain might help. There’s no book telling them how to handle these situations, but he said it felt right and it seemed to comfort her somewhat.

Forest Ranger Captain Kevin Burns said McKay climbed Scarface on New Years Eve. He pointed over the cairn through the leaf-less trees to where the village lay below and wondered if McKay watched the fireworks show that night.