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Turning their passions into saving lives

Two of the women on Revelstoke’s Search and Rescue Team
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Emily Roberts

For Emily Roberts and Jamie McCaffrey being a part of Revelstoke’s Search and Rescue team is about turning a passion into helping people.

Roberts rides motorcycles. McCaffrey is the owner and trainer of search and rescue dogs.

McCaffrey, who is also a ski patroller at the resort, became enamoured with the idea of training a search and rescue dog while living in Fernie.

She was at the top of the White Pass charlift where she saw Jennifer Coulter playing with her dog Farley.

“I was watching her engage with her dog and she was like down on her hands and knees, and smacking her dogs paw and the dog would go and smack her hand, they were playing and I was completly mesmerized,” she said.

She later found out that Coulter, a Canadian Rescue Dog Association handler, had completed the same program McCaffrey was in.

“I thought, well if she can do it, I can do it,” McCaffrey said. “And it began, but I didn’t know how hard it would be.”

McCaffrey’s first dog Jake was five months old when her grandfather went missing in Arizona.

“I already had the dog, said I was going to train him for search and rescue and then my grandfather went missing and I really saw how important it was to train these dogs,” she said.

After that she was 3,000 times more motivated to be the best she could be.

McCaffrey trained Jake as both an avalanche and wilderness dog. He retired earlier this year, after eight years of service and two days later McCaffrey’s new dog Red was certified.

On that very same day her grandfather’s remains were located.

Though she started out as “a girl with a dog that had an idea,” McCaffrey is an asset to the Revelstoke Search and Rescue team, and her personal experience of a missing family members adds to that.

“When I started I had taken a mountaineering course but I wasn’t the asset I am today,” she said. “You evolve. Time goes on and you learn and you develop more skills. There is always a starting point. You don’t have to be fully trained before you start.”

She knows just as well as anyone how important it is to complete a search, even if there isn’t a happy ending.

“I like the problem, I like solving the problem, I like meeting the people, I like going home and knowing there was a good result and even if there wasn’t a good result at the end of the day that family deserves closure and that is so important,” she said.

Roberts joined Revelstoke Search and Rescue just over a year ago and formed the motorcycle search team.

She has been riding since she was six years old and knew what an asset a motorcycle could be when trying to track someone.

“Trucks are great but you have a lot of trouble seeing what’s below you and what’s right in front of you and by foot’s great but you move so much more slowly,” she said.

On her first call out she estimates that she and her teammate moved up the task four hours.

“Within about an hour and a half we had narrowed it down to a one kilometre radius where somebody could be,” she said.

Though the team hasn’t been involved in many searches, Roberts said she thinks they have a good foundation and hope they can grow the team and be more involved.

In the winter Roberts volunteers on the snowmobile team. Though she has only three years of experience driving she has been learning from her more experienced team members.

“The most important skill that you can have is just knowing the terrain,” she said. “It’s not something that you can learn in the office, it’s something that you need to be out there and exploring and learning those boundaries of where you can go and where you might end up.”

Being on the team has not only been a constant learning experience but has also opened Roberts’ eyes to a whole new side to the sports she loves.

“I’ve really enjoyed just being able to learn every time you go out,” she said. “It’s kind of a scary moment if you get a call or something but it’s really, really great and you learn something every single time you get to go out with everybody, whether it is a training session or a call.”