north shore news nsnews.com
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2026 | B1
North Shore Rescue volunteers prepare to long-line rescue an injured skier from the Cypress Mountain area.
THANKYOU
NORTH SHORE
RESCUE
COURTESY OF PAT BELL
Highs and lows for North Shore Rescue in 2025 BRENT RICHTER brichter@nsnews.com
North Shore Rescue’s volunteers were called on 140 times in 2025. After a spike in calls for help in 2020 and the years following, things have returned to prepandemic levels, said team leader Scott Merriman. The team made use of helicopters to aid in rescues 59 times last year. The hoist- and night vision-equipped ones that North Shore Rescue has access to via Talon Helicopter went to work 33 times saving lost or injured hikers, including 14 at night. On seven occasions, the team was asked to help local first responders search for dementia patients who wandered away from home. Because of their advanced skills and gear, North Shore Rescue was asked to help out in the jurisdictions of other SAR teams around the province 42 times, almost always for life-and-death calls. It’s been a lot for the team’s complement of volunteers, “but we’re managing it,” Merriman said. The year did stand out in one regrettable way – the number of deaths and life-altering injuries in the mountains. Those included a woman who died after sliding 200 metres down
a cliff on Mount Seymour, a Richmond teenager who fell in a gully near Cypress Mountain Resort and an 84-yearold Surrey man who vanished while on a hike on Grouse Mountain. There was also a drowning at Cabin Lake and a severe head injury to a Coquitlam teen who fell down Christmas Gully on Mount Strachan. Several of the mutual aid calls also had bad outcomes too, particularly in the Sea to Sky corridor. “We normally do get one or two fatalities or cases where we don’t find somebody,” Merriman said. “I’ve been on the team for 14 years. I can’t remember a year where we had this number of fatalities or critically injured people.” Three of those calls were tied to the particularly icy conditions the mountains saw during the late winter and early spring. Merriman said people tend to have a false sense of security about the North Shore Mountains because they are so close to a major city. “There is some real terrain and serious terrain and there’s areas with significant exposure,” he said, stressing the need for researching the conditions in the mountains and preparing accordingly. While not every call resulted in a positive outcome, the vast majority did. Advancements in technology are helping with that, Merriman said.
The team is making more use of drones to search difficult-toreach areas and they’re now employing AI software from a Squamish company that analyzes the drone footage in real time looking for anomalies or any sign of a missing subject.
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I’VE BEEN ON THE TEAM FOR 14 YEARS. I CAN’T REMEMBER A YEAR WHERE WE HAD THIS NUMBER OF FATALITIES OR CRITICALLY INJURED PEOPLE.
In September, the team had their first ever successful deployment of LifeSeeker, a helicopter-mounted device that works like a portable cell tower allowing them to zero in on the cellphones of people who are missing in areas with no cell coverage. A 72-year-old man from Nanaimo failed to come home after going for a bike ride in a wooded area. North Shore Rescue found him the next day after he’d crashed and suffered a head injury. “It’s tough to know what that outcome would have looked like if we weren’t able to find him as quickly as we did,” Merriman said. continued on page B3