Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 21, 2008

NUNAVUT - This is the final instalment in a four-part series on survival on the land.

Emergency personal locator beacons are available to all Nunavummiut heading out on the land and have the potential to save the lives of those who become lost or in trouble.

Ed Zebedee, director of protection services with the Department of Community and Government Services, displays an emergency personal locator beacon. - Stephanie McDonald/NNSL photo

In 2006, the Department of Community and Government Services (CGS) provided each of Nunavut's communities with at least one beacon. In all, there are 100 beacons available to be signed out primarily through RCMP stations across the territory.

Nunavut has marine-type emergency locator beacons, but they can be used on both land and water. If taken on a boat, the beacon is activated as soon as it gets wet. On land, the device must be activated manually.

"It's a very simple operation," said Ed Zebedee, director of protection services with CGS.

To activate the beacon, a user screws an antenna onto the top and lifts a guarded switch. The beacon sends a signal to a satellite, which alerts workers at search-and-rescue centres in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Trenton, Ont., or Halifax.

From there, CGS is notified and the number tracked back to a community and the person who signed it out.

"We'll know within an hour that someone has activated a beacon," Zebedee said.

A beacon sends a GPS location, which is accurate to within 10 to 20 feet. Older beacons could only provide searchers with co-ordinates within 10 square miles of the lost individuals. As of February 2008, the older style beacons will no longer be monitored.

Zebedee said someone lost on the land used one of the new beacons late last year.

In Cambridge Bay, the RCMP detachment has four beacons available but they have rarely been used. Sgt. Louis Jenvenne thinks that is probably due to a lack of knowledge about the beacons, but most people in Cambridge Bay travel with some sort of radio when they're on the land.

"Used properly, they are an excellent tool should somebody get lost or need emergency care," Jenvenne said.

Baker Lake only recently received its beacons and Richard Aksawnee, on the board of directors for both the hunters and trappers and Search and Rescue in the region, doubts if anyone has taken them out.

"We want a presentation to the community on how the equipment works," Aksawnee said. "If we just hand them out the way they are, I'm pretty sure we'll get a false alarm all the way to Trenton, Ont., and we don't want that to happen."

Zebedee said a presentation was given to search-and-rescue co-ordinators from the communities a year ago when the beacons were first purchased.

An instruction manual comes with the devices, he added, and as people sign them out from the RCMP they should be given instructions on when they should be used and how they work.

To further enhance understanding, Zebedee said he might get his staff to write up a simple instruction sheet, have it translated, and issue them with the beacons.

Aksawnee said he thinks that most will catch on to taking the beacons out on the land, but that elders most likely won't use them. As it is, they don't like to take global positioning systems onto the land with them, he said.

Most people travelling on the land outside of Baker Lake take a high frequency radio with them or a satellite phone, according to Aksawnee.