Home → Timeline → this article
One Search Ends; Another Started
Daily Colonist24 November 1953p. 1Before 1979
“One Search Ends; Another Started”, Daily Colonist, p. 1, 24 November 1953 ref-only
Summary
A 48-hour search by 1,500 men in thick Sooke bush for a missing hunter ended successfully on the Monday afternoon, and another began at once for three missing searchers. Thirty-year-old Ronald Murray of 85 Crease Avenue was found alive and well, but soaking wet and cold, by five Sooke men on Muir Creek, about three miles from where searchers had been looking for him for 48 hours. Eight members of the search party failed to come out of the bush before darkness covered the area; a party of four walked out shortly after 10 p.m., followed a short time later by a lone searcher. The three still missing were named as Herbert Smith, about 53, of 655 Canterbury; Ronald Knight, about 30, of 2313 Cranmore Road; and George Bishop, about 30, of 1560 Oakcrest Road.
Details
| Headline | “One Search Ends; Another Started” |
|---|---|
| Publication | Daily Colonist |
| Date | 24 November 1953 |
| Page | 1 |
| Era | Before 1979 |
| Document type | news report |
| Source | britishcolonist.ca (University of Victoria) |
| Accessed | 2026-07-17 |
| Licensing | ref-only |
| Record confidence | confirmed |
Archivist's note
The largest search documented in this archive by number of participants, and the one the project's earlier research files call the marquee pre-formation event. No search and rescue organization is named: the article credits RCMP Constable P. Humphries with giving search instructions, Scoutmaster Jack Green with leading Scouts, and five Sooke men with the find. This matters for the lineage question - in 1953 the capability was ad hoc, drawn from RCMP, Scouts, loggers and neighbours. See conflicts.md C-04, C-05 and C-06.
The clipping
