This spring, when Sue MacDonald takes her next group of high school students on the long hike up Mount Robson, she'll know a survival skills she didn't know the last time she make that trek.
Like how to use dental floss to hold together a makeshift stretcher or bind the boughs of a lean-to.
MacDonald teaches the TAPS (Transitional Alternative Program Secondary) program at the John McInnis Centre, where she started an outdoor education/personal fitness class two years ago. MacDonald and one of her students were among a group of nine participants in the two-day wilderness first aid course held over the weekend by OVERhang, a Prince George group focused on teaching outdoor safety and recreation. MacDonald has taken groups to the Berg Lake trail the nine past years and also gets her students involved in backcountry skiing and kayaking.
"A course like like this gives students an increased sense of confidence in being outdoors by themselves, with small groups or in their future careers, so they know how to react in certain situations," said MacDonald. "This is good for a person who enjoys the outdoors and it's appropriate for anyone. I'll be better prepared when we take groups to places like Mount Robson in the event something does happen. Things can happen quickly and you need to know what to do. The wilderness can be very unpredictable."
That was certainly true Saturday morning when the survivalists woke up to six centimetres of fresh snow after an unseasonable mid-April dump overnight.
"You never know what's going to happen, and this encourages creative thinking to deal with any situation you might encounter, whether it's injuries or medical complications or an allergic reaction, anything that could happen in the backcountry environment," said OVERhang president Lauren Phillips.
"The snow this morning was an added element but it's very real because people are outside year-round."
Participants in the 16-hour course at Beaverly fire hall went indoors to learn basic first aid and scene assessment techniques from instructor Sheila Gruenwald, who touched on the psychology of survival and some of the skills needed to deal with trauma and weather-related conditions such as hypothermia and heatstroke. On Sunday, the class went out into the field surrounding the hall to use basic tools and some raw materials to make improvised stretchers and splints to immobilize the limbs to simulate real-life rescues.
Each participant was asked to bring a daypack with whatever they would normally bring with them if they had gone hiking or cross-country skiing.
"After most of these courses, people stock up on couple small items they'll bring with them in the future that can make a big difference, like tooth floss," said Phillips, said Phillips, who has a background as a professional forester and is active with Prince George Search and Rescue.
"A friend of ours had to fix his ski binding with tooth floss in the backcountry. It's amazing stuff."
This was the fourth wilderness first aid course OVERhang has put on in the past year. The company also teaches swift-water rescue techniques, ice safety and rescue, ATV safety and snowmobile operation, and avalanche awareness programs.
OVERhang also teaches workshops on survival training, team-building, problem-solving and trip planning. They have field trips planned with outdoor education classes at Kelly Road and Duchess Park secondary schools and also work with the UNBC outdoors club, the Prince George Alpine Club and forest industry professionals.
OVERhang also focuses on teaching rock climbing techniques and brought 1984 Olympic rhythmic gymnastics champion Lori Fung to Prince George over the weekend to teach a stretching course for climbers. OVERhang hopes to have its indoor climbing gym at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club open by the summer.
Go to overhang.ca for more information.
