By John Francis
There were a few dozen people around the Grotto at Bruce Peninsula National Park on the afternoon of Sunday, Feb 21. Quite a few were using the ice as a means of getting around the cliffs to explore the Grotto itself. A few, unwisely as it turned out, ventured further out on the ice.
When a large pan of ice became detached from shore and started to move northwards, there were two people “on board”. By the time they realized their predicament, the gap was too wide to jump. Seeing no immediate danger, the people elected to sit tight and wait for rescue.
They called 911, as did people on the shore.
This invoked a complex multi-agency response. Ambulances were dispatched; the OPP called in MNBP Fire and Rescue personnel, who, despite help from local snowmobilers, arrived to find the floe was now a kilometre offshore, By this time OPP personnel had requested the OPP rescue helicopter and also contacted the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, a joint venture of the Canada Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force. The JRCC Great Lakes unit operates out of CFB Trenton on Lake Ontario. JRCC dispatched a C130 Hercules and a helicopter (the helicopter was diverted back to Trenton when the rescue was made by the OPP chopper). The JRCC recognized the kind of conditions that lead to ice rescues — partial ice cover and a dramatic overnight shift in wind direction — so the Hercules was ready to fly. But this time, instead of rescuing fishermen on Lake Simcoe, it was errant hikers at the Grotto.
The Hercules was the first aircraft on the scene — with a 540km/hr cruising speed it can get from Trenton to the Grotto in about 40 minutes. The Hercules offers many options: it can drop various kinds of emergency supplies — or even a medic — by parachute. In this instance, it ascertained that the people were not in immediate danger then kept them in sight as the stiff breeze moved their ice floe further and further offshore. By the time the OPP helicopter arrived to do the rescue, the floe was 3 kilometres from shore. The rescuers’ preferred landing spot on shore — Tobermory airport — was blocked with snow, so the helicopter landed at Head of Trails parking lot at BPNP. Two ambulances were there in case they were needed. The two rescued hikers were checked out by ambulance personnel and released. They walked across the parking lot, climbed in their car and left.
The whole event took barely two hours, but it shook the emergency responders. It was frustrating for local firefighters to stand on shore, unable to do a rescue. They are asking themselves: was there a better way? Was this a one-off or a harbinger of things to come?
MNBP’s Fire and Emergency department is “land based”; their equipment and training are focussed on land and near-land events. In this incident, the situation became beyond their equipment capabilities and normally Coast Guard handles what became an “off-shore” rescue.
After a daring rescue of a snowmobiler whose machine had broken through the ice, the department fundraised to purchase a Polar 75 inflatable ice/water rescue vessel. When tethered to shore it is restricted by the amount of certified water rescue rope carried by the department.
Fun Fact: Georgian Bay in general, and at the Grotto in particular, is not part of Bruce Peninsula National Park. It is not part of the Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula. It is not part of Bruce County.
As soon as people step off the shore into the water or onto the ice, they are leaving the park and leaving MNBP. So whose responsibility are they? (Relevant fact: the rescue was accomplished by the OPP with the assistance of JRCC; neither will be sending a bill to the municipality, the park or the rescued hikers.)
How should Parks define its responsibilities, given that the shoreline and the access trails are National Park but the water (and therefore the ice) are not? I asked Bruce McMillan, Public Relations and Communication Officer at Parks Canada’s regional office. An excerpt of his response: “At Bruce Peninsula National Park, a number of preventative measures are in place to promote visitor safety, the most important of these being messaging to visitors to help them stay safe during their visit. At this time of year, those messages are focussed on winter hazards such as ice. Winter safety signage is installed at the shoreline, at the head of trails where visitors set off from the parking area, on the way to the Grotto, and at the Cyprus Lake Gatehouse. These messages are also reinforced verbally when visitors register with our staff.”
In other words, as with the snowmobilers seven years ago — no amount of signage was going to fix the problem.
Specialized rescue expertise does exist in our area. Local guides Scott Parent and Zane Davies did a winter crossing of Georgian Bay in March of 2015. They wore survival suits and towed specialized Stand-Up Paddleboards as freight sleds, walking on the ice and paddling across stretches of open water.
But it all comes back to the question of jurisdiction — who is responsible for Georgian Bay?
