Dawn Unruh regrets not joining Central Cariboo Search and Rescue sooner.
“I wish I’d done it right out of high school,” said the ground search trainer. “It’s really rewarding being a part of CCSAR. You get back more than you give. Anyone who has joined SAR since 2018 has been in a course that I've been part of."
Unruh and her husband Kevin got involved with CCSAR in 2016 because they are avid snowmobilers.
CCSAR needed help with winter mountain searches and connected with the Powder Kings Snowmobile Club, which the Unruhs were members of.
They joined CCSAR that winter as part of Snow SAR and helped with mountain searches.
"They asked us to become members and we took our ground search and rescue course at the beginning of 2017," she recalled.
During the 2017 wildfires CCSAR was very busy and that experience cemented Dawn and Kevin for life.
"You get sucked in and it becomes a big part of your family and the next thing you know, your hooked."
One particular search looms large in her heart.
"We were searching for a young boy and we finally found him. Watching his dad and him hug for the longest time was probably the thing that cemented me into search and rescue the most. It really drove me to train harder so I can help bring everybody home."
Unruh said the team meets one night a week for sure, but tends to extend that when there is additional training such as rope nights or ice water rescue.
Born in Blackpool, England, she moved to Williams Lake with her parents when she was two-and-a-half. She grew up in Wildwood, where she attended elementary school. When she was a teenager she worked in the restaurant at the Sandman before it was Denny's.
After graduation from Columneetza, she got a job at Downtown Service which was a Petro-Can on Oliver and Third Avenue, staying for five or six years.
She knew Kevin from school, he was a few grades ahead of her.
"Driving around I met him and then the next thing you know, he'd come into Petro-Can where I was working and come and visit me. We started dating and we got married in 1996. I was unable to have children, unfortunately, but we have dogs.”
She left Downtown Service and went to work at Mega Fuels for Bill DeWitt where she stayed for eight years until he sold it.
"When he sold Mega Fuels I stayed on with Big B Tire. We went out to the 50 and I did both. I worked for Mega Fuels and ran their warehousing."
Dewitt was the one who got her into changing tires at Big B, a skill that landed her a job 25 years ago with Kal Tre.
After changing tires at Kal Tire for many years, she moved to the front counter and sold tires.
“Our administrator quit and they offered me the position. I was like, 'I’m more of a hands-on kind of person but I'll try it,' which I did," she explained.
She did office work for quite a few years then changed to being a zone administrator.
“We had four stores and then a little while after that they changed how it was working and I became a regional admin. Now I work for a regional group and there are five of us looking after 27 stores.”
As a woman she said she never experienced any issues with CCSAR but working in tire shops, she did in the past and said it has been refreshing to see attitudes toward women change.
“Male customers sometimes didn’t understand," she said. "Now it’s pretty cool. There are tons of women managers. At the store in Williams Lake the new certified assistant manager is a woman.
Unruh encourages anyone who is interested to find out more about being involved with CCSAR.
One of her favourite photographs is after a night out in the bush where her ball cap and her face are really dirty.
"I keep that cap in my SAR kit and it has to go with me on every search," she said.
