A toddler survived a night alone in the woods after he wandered away from a British Columbia campground and went missing for approximately 16 hours.

“There really aren’t a lot of words to describe how the family feels about finding this little boy,” said Issac Leuenberger’s great-aunt Evelyne Fahselt.

She said the family thought they would find him immediately after the two-year-old went missing during a family hike Saturday evening through Premier Lake Provincial Campground. Within five minutes of his disappearance, everyone in the campground was pitching in to find him, she said.

Through the night and into the morning, a team of police dogs, two helicopters and approximately 70 search-and-rescue volunteers combed over the area, searching through trucks and trailers multiple times, said Fahselt.

“It was awful. It was awful, especially in the dark,” she told CTV Calgary.

The campground, located about 70 kilometres north of Cranbrook, B.C., is nestled along the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains and surrounded by winding trails and several small lakes.

Issac was found the next morning around 11 a.m. when a volunteer heard a strange noise from the bushes and found the youngster sitting just off a trail.

“(At) first (they) maybe thought it (was) a bird or a squirrel, and realized it was young Issac there, so they were able to radio back that he had been found," Cpl. Chris Newel of the Cranbrook/Kimberley RCMP detachment told CTV Calgary.

Fahselt said everyone burst into tears when the news came that Issac was OK.

“It was the best feeling in the world because we had just gone from the most terrifying feeling in the world.”

The toddler had wandered about 3 kilometres from the campground. Aside from plenty of scratches, he appeared to be in good health.

The boy’s grandmother says she believes the family’s prayer circle the night before helped deliver Issac to safety.

"We believe that made a big difference," Jill Leuenberger told CTV Calgary.