  This is an English translation of Henri Joris' article "Le chasseur perdu
dans la for\^et (Un probl\`eme de g\'eom\'etrie plane)" that appeared in
$Elemente\ der\ Mathematik$ v. 35 (1980) n. 1, 1--14. Given a point $P$ and a
line $L$ in the plane, what is the shortest search path to find $L$, given its
distance but not its direction from $P$? The shortest search path was described
by Isbell (1957), but a complete and detailed proof was not published until
Joris (1980). I am thankful to Natalya Pluzhnikov for her dedicated work and to
the Swiss Mathematical Society for permission to post this translation on the
arXiv.
