Juan de Fuca searchers dedicate 12,500 hours in training, tasking in 2024

A year in review with coordinator and search manager Victoria Clarke: more than 40 callouts, about 40 active members and more than 12,500 volunteer hours in training and callouts during 2024. Based in East Sooke with coverage to Port Renfrew, the team's primary mutual aid is southern Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands. Its busiest work is lower-limb injuries and lost or overdue hikers on the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail - "It's a busy trail and it gets the third highest calls in the province." Training runs a minimum of ten months a year across specialty teams in rope, swiftwater, tracking and advanced first aid, with partners in Cowichan, Ladysmith and Metchosin. Operational doctrine holds that while one rapid intervention team is out, another is on standby: "we're always aware we need to be safe as well." Partnerships include Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, whose Sooke station acted as eyes on scene from the water during a cliff-fall helicopter extraction, and CASARA, which provides air support and radio relay in challenging terrain. Plans for 2025 included replacing the aging main rescue vehicle and the yellow Gore-Tex jackets, many of which were no longer waterproof, and a two-year recruiting cycle. Clarke closes: "I feel like you step away from your family life and your work life to commit these volunteer hours so it's really nice to give a shoutout to the work."