Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (July 05/02) - Inuvik RCMP have been swamped in recent years with erroneous and troublesome searches that don't need to happen.

Const. Darryl Chernoff has re-vamped a form that will make searching easier for officials and travel safer for visitors.

He recently updated a single-page, two-sided form that provides RCMP critical search information before a search begins.

Information such as who is in the group, destination, number of stops along the way and the route taken can narrow a search and save searchers critical time and resources.

"Generally, anyone who doesn't have knowledge of the area and maybe limited survival skills," could benefit from such expedited searches, Chernoff said.

Even many experienced travellers will still check in, he said, because it just makes good sense.

Added security

"They want that added security for themselves, because you could be a professional, but things could still go wrong," he said. "It could be as simple as tipping the canoe and losing provisions or a paddle -- then what happens?"

A major source of needless searches come from the younger, adventure holiday crowd.

"For high school and university students it's a big thing," he said. "They want the adventure of coming North and canoeing the mighty Mackenzie."

He said they also want to hear from seniors or families going out on the land or water for an excursion or even a day trip.

The form takes only a few minutes to fill out and completed forms are faxed to all detachments alone the travellers' route.

Once under-way, the travellers check in with detachments along the route.

"This information gets there before they do and the detachment will know that on, or bout this date they can be expecting this group," he said. "If they don't show-up by a certain date, they call the previous detachment."

Often the party is just delayed and could be late, but if there was a problem, Chernoff said the search could be narrowed between last points of contact, saving the search party critical time and effort.

"Granted it could be a large area, but at least we wouldn't have to search the whole river."

There have been previous situations where the travellers never checked in at the last stop and simply went home.

"When we finally get a hold of them, they are down in Calgary and just neglected to check-in with us," he said.

"We're asking them to stop in at each community along the river that has an RCMP detachment and check in."

The travellers can check in person at the detachment or call. Phone calls can be routed to any community detachment through Yellowknife 24 hours per day.

"There's no excuse for not checking in with the RCMP."

Chernoff has updated the form from last year by adding queries about types of equipment GPS, radio and personal locator beacon frequencies,

If a personal locator beacon is used, they ask that they have arrangements with the charter company to pick them up.

"The charter knows where they're going and they can get there fast," he said.

Last year, 113 travellers in 37 groups registered with the Inuvik detachment. Chernoff said registering is a simple service that helps visitors have a better holiday and saves searchers time and taxpayers money.

"If they don't register, we don't know they're out there."