The pace during the past two months for the North Shore Rescue (NSR) team has been relentless, and admittedly, the elite squad made up entirely of volunteers, is exhausted.
“We’ve been so incredibly busy this year our members are having a hard time responding to all these calls,” NSR team leader Mike Danks says.
“Because we’ve been so busy, we’ll be doing a couple of nights a week on calls and then going to our day jobs. It takes a toll.”
NSR is a mountain search and rescue team based in Vancouver and it’s not a large crew. It’s comprised of 40 active members, who do the field work and 20 resource people that provide support for the team. And even though the positions are all filled by ‘volunteers’, it’s anything but a casual commitment.
Just looking at the physical requirements of being part of the team would make the hardiest of weekend warrior’s do a double-take.
An ideal candidate would need to meet all, if not most of the following criteria: a high-level of physical fitness like being able to go up the Grouse Grind in less than an hour, to carry a backpack weighing 20 to 50 pounds in uneven terrain over long distances or be able to lift weights that exceed 50 pounds.
In addition to physical conditioning, volunteers need to have a high-level of knowledge of the north shore trail systems on Cypress, Grouse and Seymour mountains; along with experience hiking, snow-shoeing, touring, climbing, mountaineering, ski mountaineering, and camping. Candidates also need to have avalanche safety training; basic first aid or CPR and own outdoor equipment like Gortex clothing, a 60-70 litre backpack, hiking and mountaineering boots, crampons, harness, probe, shovel and transceiver.
“There are a lot of people that are scared off when they read the commitments involved,” Danks says.
“We invest a lot in our members, not only in equipment but time. But when they get to do their first rescue, you can see they get hooked and understand the payoff of everything they’ve done.”
It’s the time commitment and surprisingly, not the above requirements that prove to be a deterrent for potential candidates. A team member must be able to commit to five years minimum, and it’s not just for rescue calls.
According to the NSR’s website, each team member can spend “literally hundreds of hours a year on team activities, along with training every Tuesday night, plus one weekend out of four” and then there’s the time needed to take special courses like Wilderness First Aid and do fundraising or education.
And lastly, there are the ‘call-outs’ or emergency response calls that Danks says often happen at night, and often in bad weather.
“We’re not just hiking trails, we’re going into the nasty areas of the mountain, that’s really hard on the members,” he says. And with the sharp increase of calls, his 40 member field team is starting to get hurt.
Considering the statistics, it’s no surprise. In August NSR received 28 calls; which was record-breaking, and during the Labour Day long weekend another nine calls. And starting Sept. 20, the team went on calls every night.
“I’ve never seen it this busy before,” Danks says.
“This is astonishing and I’m so grateful to our members that have been coming out and putting in the time.”
What kind of time? Looking at 2014, NSR responded to 91 emergency response calls which totalled 4,545 volunteer operational hours, and from January to Sept. 24 2014 the team has had 111 calls and accumulated 4,518 volunteer hours. The volunteer hours are strictly for operations, ie. rescues, and does not include any administrative, training or maintenance time costs. If factored in, the number of hours volunteered would be doubled.
Why do the men and women volunteer for NSR?
Danks says for a lot of the members it becomes a passion.
“Once you do your first rescue it’s so rewarding to see the look in that person’s eyes as well as their families,” he says.
“And for a lot of us, it’s about being part of the community and supporting it. We want to encourage people to get in the outdoors, and we want them to know we’ve got their backs.”
That passion comes at a cost for NSR members. Danks is 39 years old, a husband and father of three girls under the age of nine. Both he and his wife, Amy, have full-time jobs and since becoming the team lead following the sudden death of Tim Jones in January 2014, Danks’ time commitment to NSR has increased immensely.
While his wife supports what he does, there is a level of frustration coupled with concern. Every time an NSR member heads out on a call, they’re putting their lives in danger.
READ MORE: Tim Jones remembered on the 1st anniversary of his death
“Tim [Jones] was the heart of this team; he made NSR his entire life. He would run 95 per cent of the calls, so it would give guys like myself a chance to not have to respond to every call. With him not here, it’s put a huge amount of pressure on all of us.
“It’s taken nine of us to make up what one guy did.”
Along with doing 95 per cent of the emergency calls, Jones played a huge role fundraising for NSR, which is how the team is able to operate each year.
NSR’s annual operating budget is $500,000. Every year the team applies for a gaming grant of $100,000 and receives an additional $80,000 from the three municipalities their services support. That still leaves NSR to fundraise $320,000 — every year — to meet their basic operating, maintenance and training needs.
It’s a level of fundraising that is not realistic based on their time commitments.
“It’s not sustainable for volunteers to commit this much,” Danks says.
The current statistics show there’s a distinct need for these community-based rescue crews especially when tourism in B.C. is on the rise, along with the surrounding cities’ populations. But to date, search and rescue has not proven to be a priority in Canada with the only other option being the Canadian Armed Forces. The only problem is while they do conduct search and rescue missions, it’s only via air and sea.
For now, Danks will be setting the team’s sights on fundraising, educating and preparing for the upcoming winter season and hopes the provincial government will step up and look at changing the current situation.
If you would like to donate to SNR or for more information, head to their web site.
Additional Information:
10 Essentials to bring when heading into the north shore mountains
Comments