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NUNAVUT - Transmitter devices available to Nunavummiut going out on the land can help save lives, but are not always widely used, say police and search and rescue workers.

Ed Zebedee, director of protection services with the Department of Community and Government Services, displays an Emergency Personal Locator Beacon. - NNSL file photo

Supplied by Nunavut's Emergency Services, personal beacon transmitters are on loan to people making trips out onto the land through RCMP detachments and hamlet offices in many communities across the territory.

"We have used them in searches before," said Anne Curley, a search and rescue co-ordinator in Hall Beach. "When a person brings one and they're in trouble, then they give the signal and we get the information from (Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre) Trenton and they're located a lot faster than waiting for somebody to arrive."

In Hall Beach, as in the community of Cambridge Bay, the devices can be signed out through the police detachment free of charge.

"It's a lot quicker from a response (point of view)," said Staff Sgt. Charlie Gauthier, who is in charge of the Cambridge Bay detachment. "As soon as it's activated, it basically sends a GPS signal and a location. It's monitored worldwide basically.

The exact location where the signal's coming from will be forwarded to us almost immediately."

The devices have yet to be used in a search and rescue operation in Cambridge Bay. They have only been loaned out twice so far in the last couple of years.

"They're under-utilized, I can say that," said Gauthier.

Sgt. Louis Jenvenne in Rankin Inlet said the personal transmitters are extremely useful in situations where someone is lost out on the land or out in a boat.

"We promote them in search and rescue because, let's face it, they're an invaluable tool if someone's lost," he said.

Jenvenne said if transmitters aren't being used enough, it could either be due to a lack of public knowledge or the fact that more and more people are purchasing devices of their own.

"It's getting to be a more popular thing anyway," he said. While the transmitters are being used "occasionally" in Hall Beach, Curley recommends that anyone making a trip signs one out.

"It would be a recommendation if everybody would be using them or bring them with them," she said. "Even if you're going to be OK - but you never know."