Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue Historical Archive1948–2026

Team Name

Which name each article uses, and when the usage shifts. The evidence is presented rather than a conclusion, because the evidence does not support a clean line.

The naming lineage, presented as evidence. The archive dates the organised team from 1979, the earliest year it appears in print — verified word for word against the Victoria Times of 10 November 1979, which records "ten members of the Sooke Search and Rescue team" searching overnight. That is four years earlier than the 1983 date in the CRD's own history page, which the archive also records. The 2003-10-16 Times Colonist column supplies the rest: the team became the 30-member Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue Service, "formerly Sooke Ground Search and Rescue", after being "orphaned when the village of Sooke developed its own emergency program". Each row below records the name exactly as one article printed it.
19501960197019801990200020102020
South Vancouver Island Rangers 1948–1955 · 2 articlesNo team named — self-organised searches 1953–1978 · 8 articlesSooke Search and Rescue 1979–2007 · 12 articlesNeighbouring and partner SAR teams 1980–2026 · 70 articlesSooke Volunteer Fire Department 1997–2020 · 5 articlesJuan de Fuca Search and Rescue 2003–2026 · 107 articles

Each bar runs from a name’s first to its last recorded use in print, and every tick on it is one article. The dashed bar is reporting that named no team at all. The bars overlap — the papers kept using the older names — which is why this page presents the evidence rather than a single changeover date. Select a row for the articles behind it.

Names in print, with first and last recorded use

Name as printedFirst useLast useArticles
South Vancouver Island Rangers1948-11-141955-12-062
Sooke Volunteer Fire Department1997-07-092020-06-035
Sooke Search and Rescue1979-11-102007-07-0212
Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue2003-09-142026-07-30107
Neighbouring and partner SAR teams1980-07-112026-07-2369
No team named — self-organised searches
Searches and rescues reported without any organised team: parties of volunteers, neighbours, loggers, firemen and police		1953-11-241978-11-148

What the evidence shows

The names overlap. “Sooke Search and Rescue” is still in print in 2007, four years after “Juan de Fuca” first appears in 2003, and the Sooke Volunteer Fire Department is still named as a responding body in 2020. The changeover cannot be dated to a single moment from these documents, and this archive does not assert one.

Articles using both names

South Vancouver Island Rangers

Spellings used in print: South Vancouver Island Rangers

Sooke Volunteer Fire Department

Spellings used in print: East Sooke Volunteer Fire Department; Sooke Fire Department; Sooke Fire Rescue; Sooke Volunteer Fire Department

Sooke Search and Rescue

Spellings used in print: Sooke Search and Rescue; Sooke search and rescue team

Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue

Spellings used in print: Juan de Fuca Ground Search and Rescue; Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue

Neighbouring and partner SAR teams

Spellings used in print: 442 Squadron; Alberni Valley Rescue Squad; Arrowsmith Search and Rescue; Ascent Helicopters; BC Emergency Health Services; Burns Lake Search and Rescue; Central Cariboo Search and Rescue; Central Okanagan Search and Rescue; Cowichan Search and Rescue; Fort St. James Search and Rescue; Ladysmith Search and Rescue; Langford Fire Rescue; Langford emergency search and rescue team; Mackenzie Search and Rescue; Metchosin Fire Department; Metchosin Search and Rescue; North Shore Rescue; Peninsula Search and Rescue; Penticton Search and Rescue; Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce; Port Renfrew Volunteer Fire Department; Princeton Ground Search and Rescue; Quesnel Search and Rescue; Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue; Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue Station 37; Shirley Volunteer Fire Department; Shuswap Search and Rescue; South Cariboo Search and Rescue; South Columbia Search and Rescue; Vernon Search And Rescue Group Society; West Coast Helicopters

No team named — self-organised searches

Pre-1979 reports in which no organisation of any name appears: the searching is done by whoever was there to do it.