Sundre Search and Rescue has roots that go back to 1992, a time when search and rescue in Alberta was in its infancy. At that time there were only two other groups, the first formed in Rocky Mountain House and one in Athabasca in Central Alberta.
Sundre resident Dennis Bowhay was a passionate outdoorsman who spent much of his leisure time in our vast West Country. He was well aware of the risks and hazards associated with backcountry activities and was concerned about adequate RCMP response to emergencies in remote locations due to funding, manpower availability and expertise.
With this apparent need for specially trained responders in the Sundre area to assist the local RCMP, Sundre Search and Rescue was born in November 1992.
With Dennis leading the group as president and working closely with Const. Tom Clark as the RCMP liaison and search manager the group began soliciting members.
By May of 1993 training began with 35 members taking part in the fundamentals training course. The group was officially incorporated in September 1993 as the Sundre Volunteer Search and Rescue Society.
In June1993, a new preventive program called Lost in the Woods was presented by Sandy Smith to the four kindergarten classes at the Sundre elementary school.
The program stressed five key points to remember if you become lost: stay in one place, stay warm, make a bed, stay calm and be seen. The children also received a small survival kit.
Since that first presentation the Lost in the Woods program has been delivered by Sandy Smith, then Sharon Cooper and currently by Helen Jackson, to every child going through the Sundre school system, including over two hundred students this year. Perhaps this is why Sundre Search and Rescue has never had to search for a local resident.
In July of 1993, fresh from their training and eager to help, members assisted in the search for a missing 13-year-old Edmonton girl who was lost for over three days in the Ram Falls area. This was one of the largest and highest profile searches in Alberta history which ended happily with the girl being found unhurt.
Over the next several years the team remained active with ongoing training of new and existing members as well as helping the RCMP in many searches.
Most searches were for overdue persons who were usually located in a short period of time. Other calls were for assistance in gathering or locating evidence such as with the thousands of clues generated when 10 pieces of logging equipment were blown up in the Water Valley area.
Another successful evidence search was the location of a revolver used as a murder weapon in the Calgary area.
The use of volunteer searchers in these instances is a huge benefit to the RCMP as it would be very difficult and expensive to use RCMP members for the same number of man-hours that volunteer searchers can provide in a short period of time.
In 1999, a new facet of search and rescue was created when Glenda Schneidmiller formed our mounted search and rescue team.
Although horses had been used on a limited basis for SAR work in other areas of Alberta, Sundre is currently one of few teams with an organized mounted unit.
We currently have members who regularly ride and train together focusing specifically on how to improve the versatility and success of a mission by incorporating horse teams.
In February of 2002, Sundre Search and Rescue was presented the Ambassador of the Year Award from the Sundre and District Chamber of Commerce. This award is given to a person or group who actively promotes Sundre provincially, nationally or internationally. It was a great honour for our group to be selected for this award.
For the first eight years the focus of our team was to assist in wilderness searches for missing or overdue people. That all changed in July 2000 when a category F4 tornado touched down in a populated campground at Pine Lake, Alta.
Provincial emergency authorities immediately saw the value in large groups of trained and organized volunteers who could help out in these types of civil emergencies.
Since then provincial funding has been provided to help with training costs as well as memorandums of understandings created with search and rescue groups specific to civil emergency.
Other missions of civil emergency were a call to assist in a partial evacuation of the City of Red Deer due to a chemical spill and most recently the evacuation of 1,300 residents from the Town of Sundre during the 2005 flood.
The flood event also took teams to the City of Drumheller and into Clearwater County to assist with their disaster efforts. The local flood event and Sundre SAR’s response was repeated again in 2013.
Our mandate is to provide well-trained, organized and prepared volunteers to assist the local RCMP or government agencies in a time of need.
Our volunteers come from many different walks of life with differing levels of training and experience. We currently have 30 members with three RCMP-trained search managers, members trained in man tracking, high- and low-angle rescue, advanced first aid, swift water rescue and equine (mounted) SAR.
Whatever the level of training or experience of our members is, the one thing that is constant is that we are all prepared and dedicated to help in whatever way that we can.
Roger Tetreault is the longtime president and senior search manager with Sundre Search and Rescue.
