So we're here at the North Shore Rescue base in North Vancouver and we're here to donate one of
those ridiculously oversized checks along with the real one to the BC Search and Rescue Association.
This money is going to be donated to North Shore Rescue as well as a handful of other search and
rescue organizations in the Fraser Valley and throughout the Sea to Sky corridor to be used
for their operational expenses. This is all money that our group Run Wild Vancouver has raised,
the non-profit that i founded a few years ago that provides education, both in-person and online
for trail runners on backcountry safety. So all this money was donated by trail runners in the
community who attended our events. While we're here, we're going to get a tour of the facilities
and we're going to talk to them a little bit about how search and rescue works in B.C. So let's go.
Since 2016, Run Wild Vancouver has raised over $50,000 for search and rescue in B.C.,
while engaging over 500 attendees of our online and in-person educational events. Most of our
programming is based on the AdventureSmart program which was started by the BC Search
and Rescue Association to help address the growing number of search and rescue calls in the province.
AdventureSmart is an outdoor awareness program that was started by the BC Search and Rescue
Association almost 18 years ago. We have over 1,900 search and rescue calls every year in the
province of B.C. and it's continuing to increase, with 79 search and rescue groups consisting of
almost 3,000 search and rescue volunteers responding. The whole focus behind
AdventureSmart is to increase awareness so we can help reduce the number and severity
of search and rescue calls in the province of B.C. In B.C. we've trained over 500 outdoor
educators to help us. They're volunteers, some of them are from Run Wild Vancouver and some
of them are from search and rescue groups, and others are just passionate outdoor enthusiasts.
As Sandra said, there are 79 volunteer search and rescue teams around the province, but North
Shore Rescue is by far the busiest, being in such close proximity to downtown Vancouver.
So this is the loading bay, the whole design of the facility was to house the
trucks because the trucks obviously last a lot longer if they're kept in a proper environment.
The platform up here we do rope training. Equipment along here, there's swift water
equipment, extra oxygen. You can see it's just all backup supplies. All of our members are meant to
be self-sufficient for 24 hours, so the members have got a key, they can get in here and they
can make sure they are fully equipped. A huge cost for us is maintaining our communications. We have
seven repeater stations because radios only go line of sight so we put repeaters on the
top of the mountains and we send a signal up and they repeat down to all sides of the mountain.
We've also got one at UBC and one at SFU and they send signals up the valleys from there. So between
them, we we cover most areas in the backcountry. This is the same setup in all of our SAR stations.
So we've got always five radios that we use, digital and analog. One of
the repeaters is on Cathedral Mountain and from our radios we can connect into the telephone
and telephone anywhere in the world. Of course, we have satellite telephones as well but but
just with our ordinary analog radio we can connect into the phone system. There's some photos here of
some of our SAR stations. The repeaters and the caches, about 13 caches out in the backcountry.
They're full of equipment so that we can rush out to an area where the subject is without having to
carry a stretcher, for example. There's food out there, there's chainsaws, there's tents,
sleeping bags and it's there to support both team members and subjects if we get stuck out any time
of the year. We don't officially rescue dogs but we've had quite a few dog rescues and typically on
a dog rescue the owner pays for any out-of-pocket expenses because the province does not
cover those sort of costs. So we are all volunteers, nobody's paid on the team. Costs
really are for training, huge costs involved in training to maintain a skill level which keeps
us safe, and then maintenance of equipment. This is a huge cost. I've been since 1990, so
31 years now just, over 31 years. But I'm not the oldest member on the team. Incredible.
We have incredible access to great terrain here in the province, that's one part of the equation.
We also have a lot of outdoor enthusiasts who love the outdoors, to run, bike, hike, whatever
you love to do. We're an active, healthy province but we need to help reduce the number and severity
of those search and rescue calls, and it's all of our individual responsibilities to be prepared, be
responsible and plan before you go. We ask you to follow the three t's: Trip plan, train, and take
the essentials.