On the Saturday alone, nearly [ninety] people logged close to 1,700 hours working in extremely thick vegetation to try to locate Melissa McDevitt, who was spotted on surveillance video on 9 December, the day before she was scheduled to fly to see her family in North Carolina. "The Sooke RCMP, along with Ms. McDevitt's family, wish to extend their sincere appreciation to Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue, along with over 17 other assisting search and rescue agencies from across Vancouver Island and other parts of British Columbia, for their significant search efforts over the past nine days," said Sgt. Kevin Shaw, acting Sooke RCMP detachment commander, in a statement issued just after noon on the Monday. Search and rescue teams from Vancouver Island were joined by personnel from other parts of the province, including dog teams, who showed up over the weekend.
Written from the article text only. Where the scan is hard to read, the summary was taken from the page image rather than the OCR.
Details
Headline
“Search called off for missing hiker in Sooke area” Not recorded in the catalogue — read from the clipping image. Check it against the clipping below before quoting it.
The largest mutual-aid response recorded anywhere in this archive: more than seventeen assisting agencies from across Vancouver Island and the rest of British Columbia, and close to 1,700 volunteer hours logged in a single day. For comparison, the whole of 2024 accounted for 12,500 hours across the year. This page was recovered from inside the ProQuest bulk export already held in the archive, where it had been listed as referenced but not held.
The clipping
The full page. The article region could not be verified automatically, so the whole page is shown rather than risk a clipping that cuts off the article. the whole page is shown; the article region within it has not been isolated.
Read the original online
ProQuest — the scanned page in the Times Colonist digital archive ↗subscription or library card Recorded exactly as captured, including the Greater Victoria Public Library proxy address — it needs a GVPL card or a ProQuest subscription. Without one, search ProQuest for the document ID in the address. This link opens through the Greater Victoria Public Library and asks for a library card number before showing the page. Cards are free for Greater Victoria residents — sign up on the GVPL site; an online temporary card is enough for the digital databases. Outside Greater Victoria, ask your own library whether it offers the ProQuest Times Colonist archive. http://search.proquest.com.proxy.gvpl.ca/pdntimescolonist/newspapers/december-202022-page-a3/docview/2759414441/sem-2?accountid=6051
These links leave this archive and point at the publisher. They may change or disappear — the scan held here is the archival copy.
This is a full newspaper page and carries unrelated stories as well as the article summarised here. The text is the OCR made from the ProQuest bulk export during the 2026 research phase, not a fresh pass. Recovered from page 46 of the bulk export. The number of searchers on the Saturday is rendered by OCR as "nearly nh people" and is read as nearly ninety; the figure should be checked against the scan before it is quoted.
Record id 2022-12-20-times-colonist-pa3-mcdevitt-search. Original file in the project archive: 02_articles/2026-07-16_proquest_bulk_export_50_articles_2012-2026.pdf (page 48).
Explore onward
In the timeline
13 December 2022Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue personnel returned to the mobile command base during the search for Melissa McD
