Innisfail teen Erich Marcinkowski is one step closer to being a Mountie.
Innisfail teen Erich Marcinkowski is one step closer to being a Mountie.
The 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Innisfail High School got the official word on May 26 from the RCMP that he has been accepted to be part of an exclusive class of young men and women for this year's Depot Youth Camp in Regina from Aug. 8 to 12. The students were chosen based on their academic achievement, citizenship and interest in police work.
The select group of 32 grade 11 and 12 students from across the Prairie provinces and territories will be exposed at the RCMP Academy to drill exercises, driving simulator training, firearms, police officer scenarios, a tour of Depot and the RCMP Museum.
"This is awesome. It is another resume opportunity, as well as more experience. I will get to see what it is all about, and make sure this is what I want to do," said Marcinkowski, adding he has expectations the week will offer many diverse challenges. "It will be difficult, but I am expecting that once I get back I will have lots of fun stories from learning and practising.
"I am not 100 per cent sure what I will be learning physically, but I am assuming there will be a lot of compressed lessons that I would be learning once I am an RCMP officer," he added.
And while the local teen does not believe he will receive an actual grade on his performance, he is expecting to be judged on whether he is future recruitment material for the national police force.
"They may want to check that I don't have colour blindness or some restriction like that, but I don't think there is grading. It will be strict with discipline to see if you are made for the job," he said.
Marcinkowski applied for the Depot summer camp last year after shadowing a local Mountie but found out he was too young. But he persevered and shadowed again this year, an hour a day at school and on weekends.
In April, he had to go through the interview process in Red Deer with an RCMP recruitment officer from K Division headquarters, and it went so well he received the news last month he was accepted for the exclusive program.
The RCMP summer camp experience will be his first official involvement with any quasi police or military agency, although he has researched other organizations to see if any was a right fit for his ambitions.
"I have looked at other cadet-type programs and I found a lot of them lacked a little bit of funding, and at times they were not exactly what I was looking for, not having enough people or not enough funding," said Marcinkowski. "This is funded by the government and it should be well done and fun."
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Erich Marcinkowski
"It is another resume opportunity, as well as more experience. I will get to see what it is all about, and make sure this is what I want to do."
