A search and rescue exercise took place over the weekend just outside of Thompson.   Canadian Forces’ rep, Captain John Baker, shares who some of the participants are and their job within the military.

"We’re here as members of the Arctic Response Company Group.  It’s a unit that’s composed of Army reservists from southern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and northwest Ontario.   And it’s a unit that receives specialized training and specialized equipment in order to be able to deploy on fairly short notice to incidents across northern Canada, across all types of terrain and all environments,  both summer and winter."

The training session, named Exercise Spirit Way 2014, was comprised of a simulated plane crash and included a search and rescue component where "survivors" of the crash had wandered from the scene and had to be found and treated for injuries.

Besides the search and rescue aspect of the exercise, Baker explains some of the other training that took place.

"We took advantage of our time up here in this environment to hone other skills sets that are necessary for us to do our jobs, such as some more advanced ATV driving, some survival lectures that we received from the Canadian Rangers, working with chain saws,  and establishing field-expedient helicopter pads."

Some of the equipment used in the training exercise and some of the participants were at an open house yesterday afternoon from 4:30 to 7:30 in the TRCC Parking Lot.