SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - David Giroux is not blaming anyone in particular, but he thinks more should have been done July 1 to help search for his cousin before he drowned in Akaitcho Bay.

David Giroux thinks the community should have done more to help with the search and rescue of his cousin who drowned Canada Day in Akaitcho Bay. However, RCMP said they had sufficient resources because they knew early on it was a recovery and not a rescue operation. - Terrence McEachern/NNSL Photo

"I don't think there was much effort put into that search," said Giroux. "I'm wondering why more boats didn't come out looking for them."

Colin Lafferty drowned on Canada Day after the boat he was on with Henry Basil and Chris Burke capsized at around 2 p.m. At around 2:45 p.m., Basil and Burke were rescued by Jonas and Juanita Sangris, who boated out to the area after receiving a call that a boat capsized. Lafferty tried to swim to shore, but he didn't make it.

The RCMP and the Coast Guard had help from some members of the public with the search, but Giroux is still bothered by the number of boats tied to the dock that could have been used to help with the search.

"I think the community should have done more," he said. "I'm not asking for an inquiry or nothing, but it's sort of a wake-up call. It could happen to me today or to anyone else."

Dettah band chief Ed Sangris was unavailable for comment Aug. 13. Kelly Cumming, Sangris' executive assistant, said the band office was closed July 1 because it was Canada Day. The Dettah band council had three boats at the dock, but the people that would have been using those boats to help were using their own boats that day, she said.

"We don't have a search and rescue team, so whether someone was (in the office) or not it wouldn't have affected anything. Basically the most efficient response happened, where a member of the community called another person who had a boat and the boat was in the water as soon as possible."

She said the council isn't considering an emergency response team of their own because they don't want to "duplicate services that already exist and are well-funded." Rather, she said the band is interested in having some of its members trained by the RCMP in search and rescue operations.

In any event, by 3:15 p.m. July 1, the RCMP knew they were in a recovery opereation and not a rescue operation because Lafferty's deceased body was spotted, said Const. Todd Scaplen of the Yellowknife RCMP.

"Within 10 minutes of us being there, we did see him in the water," he said. "By the time we got there, he had gone back under the surface again and then it took us a while to find him again. We knew we were in a recovery position not in a rescue position very early when we got there."

Lafferty's body was finally recovered between 8:10 p.m. and 8:25 p.m. Scaplen said the resources used for the operation – two RCMP boats, a Coast Guard zodiac, a helicopter and the RCMP plane, were sufficient for a recovery operation.

He said given the strong winds and rough water conditions that day and the fact they were in a recovery operation, any additional boats on the water would have been dangerous and hampered the operation.

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