There were 10 people who lost their lives in the B.C. backcountry this year, according to the Executive Director of Avalanche Canada.
Speaking on the NL Morning News, Gilles Valade, says they were preparing for the worst this year, partly due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“It is 10 deaths too many but the ten-year average now is at 10 and its been slowly going down for the last 15 years,” he said. “Even though the participation is increasing every year and probably exponentially now with COVID, we’ve seen sort of the fatalities stabilize.”
“I think its a combination of good messaging and good training, and then I think the users are also trying to be careful.”
Given that summer 2020 was a busy for search and rescue teams across B.C., Valade says they were expecting the winter to be as busy as well with people looking for things to do since they couldn’t travel like usual.
“We were worried about especially newcomers and novices that hadn’t a lot of experience in the backcountry,” Valade said. “We pushed a lot of our messaging and outreach and we developed new online information products for beginners and novices, and in the end we have a pretty good winter.”
“There were a lot of close calls. We’re not aware of all the accidents that happened, nobody necessarily needs to report accidents but fatalities is our only guaranteed numbers, and those were actually better than last year.”
Valade says a recent $10-million grant from the B.C. government will allow Avalanche Canada to expand services in under served regions of the province.
“This ensures long-term sustainability for all our programs,” he added. “We could easily expand everywhere for two years and have to close our doors because we ran out of money so our plan is to make sure that we’re around in five years and in seven years and in ten years, so that money in the long term basis like this helps.”
In announcing the money, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, noted the grant will support the work of Revelstoke-based Avalanche Canada as it develops and delivers avalanche safety and awareness in the province’s mountain regions.
“The work Avalanche Canada does is vital to our public safety, particularly as interest in winter recreation grows and as the frequency of extreme weather increases due to climate change. I’m pleased we are able to work with this organization to support its important work,” Farnworth said, in a statement.
Data shows 75 per cent of all avalanche fatalities in Canada occur in B.C., with 90 per cent of Avalanche Canada’s services delivered in the province.
