Yellowknife (Feb 02/05) - There was no sitting around the camp for a crew honing their winter survival skills in temperatures that dipped to -35C last week.

Wood collecting, fire stoking, drilling holes in the ice and consuming as many calories as possible kept a group of emergency response and search and rescue members busy on Vee Lake, Jan. 26-29.

Paul Kuchma of Edmonton Search and Rescue downs some emergency rations used in the camp. - Lisa Scott/NNSL photo

The NWT chapter of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) was holding its second annual Frozen Searcher survival training session.

Crews from Edmonton, Yellowknife Search and Rescue and CERT spent the week outside, some nights in quinzees and others in one of four McPherson canvas tents.

Combining the experience of different teams together to share their skills was the primary benefit, said organizer and CERT member Tony Clarke.

"What we needed to do is work with teams who have a lot of experience," he said, pointing out that Edmonton Search and Rescue responded to 100 missions last year.

Clarke even faced a few cancellations from a couple of teams who were deployed to Indonesia and the Maldives for tsunami relief.

For John Heffernan of the Edmonton Search and Rescue team, learning from the experts was the other way around, as some of the Yellowknife members were also Canadian Rangers.

"The ability to learn from the experts, the military Rangers, we just don't get that chance in Alberta," he said.

Gear testing was also a big part of the exercise, as participants tried out winter sleeping bags, boots, sleeping pads and hand warmers.

As the exercise wrapped up Saturday, Clarke had planned the ultimate winter survival test to end the week.

The group built a runway on Walsh Lake, simulating a real-life rescue of a group of snowmobilers who had experienced a fatality. A Cessna 185 took part in the simulation.