The People

Search and Rescue is not for the well-intentioned person who feels good about volunteering. If it is going to be done right, it has to be done professionally, which is why Saskatchewan volunteers are unpaid and paid professionals.

The unpaid volunteers, include men and women, educators, accountants, managers, courier drivers, unemployed people and many more. In short, just about any kind of person who is willing to put in scores of hours of training, practice and actual searches for lost people.

They pay for their own equipment, pay for their own courses. They drop their work or family obligations, grab their orange jackets and join in, at a few minutes notice, on one of the estimated 1,300 searches conducted every year in Canada.

The paid volunteers, include men and women in the RCMP, local police, conservation officers, and other agencies that who have stepped forward to volunteer their services to Search and Rescue.

While the levels of training, certification and expertise vary from chapter to chapter, many of Saskatchewan's volunteers are as well trained and in many cases, better trained in ground search and rescue than many officers conducting the operation.

These unpaid and paid professionals work to create an ideal balance in ground SAR, a symbiotic relationship between police and volunteers.