Longtime volunteer has experienced range of rescues

A profile of Victoria Weber marking 35 years of volunteer service as of October 2016. "For me it's more the challenge," she says. "It's like this really big, complicated puzzle and I like doing the investigation, finding the pieces of the puzzle and then putting the pieces together. That's the excitement for me ... and at the end of that, we might save a life." The article recounts a defining rescue from the 1980s: a seven-year-old boy, newly moved from Toronto, ran away from a scouting camp and was missing for days; Weber led the team that found him, covered in mud, alive, having eaten bugs and worms - "It was like he had grown up in the bush." She recalls the reunion: "I helped him out of the helicopter into his mom's waiting arms. That (memory) will stay with me forever." On modern callers she says: "We're getting a whole bunch of people who are not hikers ... yet they do a Google search and take their cell phone and think they are invincible and away they go." The article records the team in 2016 as 45 very active members plus about 20 reserve, covering from the Metchosin municipal border to and including the south end of Pacific Rim National Park, and notes that the organization has recently taken over the former East Sooke fire hall as its home base.