01/08/2016 AT 11:05 AM EST  In 1969, 21-year-old Vernette Eklund spent her summer at a disco club in Regina, Canada, dancing with a man named Gary.  Nine months later, she gave birth to their daughter Bonnie in 1970. But Gary, who was no longer in the picture, never found out he fathered the baby girl.  Now, 45 years later, Bonnie Eklund, a nurse practitioner who lives in Southern California, is hoping that a classified ad her half-sister Toni published in a newspaper, might get her one step closer to finding him.  Bonnie Eklund and her mother Vernette  "I'd just want five minutes with him in a room," Eklund tells PEOPLE. "I had the best family and upbringing but Iâm just curious. There is this missing piece. I just want to complete the puzzle."  What Vernette, who was a nurse at the time, remembers about Gary today is vague.  He would travel back and forth from Calgary to Regina for business, his last name ends with "ski"and he might have worked as a pharmacy representative.  After she was born, her mother's parents officially adopted her, so she still always had a father figure in her life.  Bonnie Eklund and Vernon, her grandfather who raised her  But even then, she often thought about who her biological father was and what he became in life.  "What does he look like, his family history, medical history, these kinds of things," she says. "Because he was never told I was born, I think it would be nice for him to know. Who knows, maybe he didnât have children and wants to know he fathered one."  At the end of the day, Eklund says finding her dad is "not to complete myself," but to "understand more about myself."  "I donât want to disrupt someones life," she says. "I just want some information."
"I've been asking questions about him for years but we only know so much about him," says Bonnie Eklund