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magazine / ja02
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July/August 2002 issue |
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FEATURE
The fast trackers
Lost in the woods? Calm down. Nova Scotia's smart-search team is on the way.
By Michael Clugston
If you step into a typical Nova Scotia forest, the world swiftly becomes a very small,
very spiky place. In this dense mass of trees, bony fingers of spruce meet in
tangled handshakes, catching at clothing and cutting visibility to a few metres.
Landmarks can be few and far between. Throw in some coastal fog, and
it's not surprising that the province has been called the lost-person
capital of North America. This green sea grows right to the backyards
of many villages and subdivisions; people have become confused and
lost within a mere three-minute walk of their home or car.
On July 1, 1986, nine-year-old Andy Warburton and his family from
Ontario were staying with relatives in Beaverbank, a village 20 kilometres
north of Halifax. Andy wandered into the woods around 3:30 p.m. and
disappeared. Two hours later, frantic relatives called the Mounties,
and so began the largest ground search in Canadian history. More than
5,000 volunteers helped comb the woods, under intense media scrutiny.
After four fruitless days, search managers called Halifax child psychologist
Ken Hill, a soft-spoken professor at Saint Mary's University,
and asked, How would a nine-year-old react to being lost in the woods?
Hill racked his brains on the short drive to the search site: had
anybody studied the behaviour of lost children? How do they behave?
He knew nothing, he admitted in embarrassment to the Mounties at the
scene.
But Hill did all he could. One of his own children was Andy's
age. By day, he slogged through the woods with the other volunteers.
By night — still in his muddy boots — he dug through the
scientific literature at the university, seeking research on lost
children.
When Andy's lifeless body was finally found on the eighth day,
an immediate eruption of blistering criticism hit the Waverley Ground
Search and Rescue team, the Halifax-area volunteers who had managed
the search. There were calls for a public inquiry; one Waverley manager
resigned; and one suicide may have been related to the public censure.
Hill's life would never be the same. Along with a core group
in the search team, he sparked a revolution in search techniques in
Halifax and other parts of Canada. He began by studying the psychology
of lost people, interviewing victims after they were rescued, conducting
experiments with students and probing the panic that people often
feel when they realize they have lost their way. At the same time,
he continued working with the Halifax search group, helping transform
it into a crack team of unpaid professionals who today are among the
best in the world.
For the rest of this story, visit your local newsstand or go to our store to buy this issue.
Related stories:
• In Depth: Finding our way
in the wilderness
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