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garryspolicememories · 5 years

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Policing Memories of

Garry Crawford Circa 1962

Part XVI

In the early spring of 1974 I was selected to attend a Search and Rescue Course with the Canadian Military. I must admit that I was probably the one in the back row with my hand straight up, yelling : Pick Me! Pick Me! I loved being in the Northern Bush. Whether it was on the trap line, hunting or another fishing expedition.

If my memory is correct, by that time I had completed my diving training with Ed Zelionis and had convinced my wife that we just had to have our own aircraft. We bought a Cessna 150 which we leased back to the local flying school. Part of the lease was an agreement that I obtain my pilot’s license for the sum of $200.00. Everything worked out fine. I even put the aircraft in my wife’s name, but unfortunately she did not like flying. So we sold the plane and built a new house.

The Search and Rescue Training took place in the Champlain Provincial Park north of Mattawa, Ontario. They set us up in small groups of 3 or 4. Each group had their own tent. The fire season was already high, so we had to do our own cooking on Coleman stoves. The first part of the course was classroom indoctrination. The part that stayed with me the rest of my life was the part where they emphasized, that in a survival or wilderness situation the first thing you do is to take stock of what you have at hand. What is available? Then make a plan of how you will use those items. I have never forgotten that as it applies in so many different situations. We were supposed to exist during the course on minimal food etc. At the same time as our course was being run there was an advanced Course in the same park with cooks and plenty of provisions. Lets just say we ate well.

The search and rescue training itself was excellent and probably is still followed today with a few adaptions. I know for the searches I coordinated over the following years we usually used a line formation, which covered an area back and fourth marking the area with flagging tape as you covered the ground. One adaption I learned to do was take one or two people who were good with a compass and send them out to predetermined locations. This was especially good in cases of small children or the elderly. I would have these people mark their route with a different coloured flagging tape. The locations would be determined by the lay of the land, the light conditions and time of the day the person became lost. The topography quite often will funnel a lost person to travel in a certain direction. They are also inclined to follow the light source. I found that quite often we would be searching too small an area. The target would not be circling but would travel in a straight direction. At the same time the main search party would pick up any clues as they carefully searched the main area. Discipline on a search line is very important. The line must hold. When a clue is observed the line stops and the clue is examined whether it is a track, article of clothing or a broken branch. One or two persons are specifically assigned do the examination and documentation.

A Search at Mile 22 CNR TRACK WEST OF

HORNEPAYE, ON

One search I sadly remember occurred in the late fall during the latter part of the 1970’s. I was dispatched to Hornpayne Detachment area. Where a learned that a young native woman who worked in the roundhouse at the CNR Sheds at Hornepayne, had travelled up to her grandparents cabin to spend a few days with them. The cabin was located on the north side of the CNR Line 22 miles west of Hornpayne and south west of Nagagami Lake. The young woman had left in the afternoon to check rabbit snares north of the cabin. A heavy snowstorm had blown in and she had not returned. All trains passing that area had blown their whistles while passing that area and she had failed to appear.

If my memory is correct, a couple of days had passed between her going missing and our responding due to the communication problem of getting word out. I proceeded to the scene via CN rail with a large search party comprised of OPP members and several native elders. We had something like 22 people on the line. They did an amazing job. Most OPP members would visualize an area of about ten to twenty feet ahead of them as they moved along in line. The native elders always seemed to be looking a hundred feet ahead. They often would notice a bent or broken branch long before we would get to it. It had snowed at least three times between the time the lady went missing and our search commenced, so there was no way of following her tracks. However we would locate areas where she had been. We would find shadow tracks in the settled snow where we could follow her for perhaps ten feet or so then lose the direction. At one point we even were able to dig her frozen foot print out. It was composed of packed and frozen snow. We also located a sweater which she had dropped and in another location her axe. The final area that we were able to positively identify was a thick growth of cedar. She had crowded into the grove, sat down on a clump of snow, then taken cedar branches and folded them over and twisted them into an egg shaped ball. The CNR trains had continued blowing their horns during our search. We found out early on that they would have been of no help to the woman. The sound ricocheted off the surrounding hills. It never seemed to be coming from the tracks, but would circle you as the train went on down the tracks. This of course would have the opposite effect to giving the lady a direction. If she tried to follow the tracks, she would have circled instead. That is what we found she had in fact done.

The last day of our search we knew another heavy snowstorm was coming in and it would obliterate any sign. In the afternoon heavy wet snow started to fall. We decided to make a deep drive down towards the river that flows out of Nagagami Lake. I remember I was concerned after the noon break that if we stopped too long with the wet clothes and cooling weather that some of our people would get into hyperthermia. I knew from experience that they also would lose energy. So what I would do would be to call a smoke break, as soon as those smokers lit up I would call for them to move forward. We made our run north then the return sweep. When we reached the area we had already covered, we made a beeline for the CNR Tracks. It was getting pretty cold by this time. It was quite dark by the time we reached the tracks. I knew all of our people were out of the bush and we were walking down the tracks to wait at the cabin for the next eastbound train to picks us up. I remember two men were walking ahead of us. One of them was Errol Patterson. Now those who know Errol will remember he had a pretty dry sense of humour. It was cold the crew were tired and probably feeling a little down because of our lack of success. My Christian names are Garry David. All of a sudden I heard Errol exclaim in the cold darkness. Somebody should tell that G—D---- CRAWFORD that slavery went out in the 1800’s. I still have a little chuckle to this day. I’m sorry Errol but you all did an excellent job. We took turns warming up at that little cabin. We were picked up by an eastbound freight train and returned to Hornpayne that night. It was a disappointed crew. The heavy snow that followed on and off for the rest of that winter stopped any further search. Plans were made to return in the spring and attempt a recovery.

The following spring in early May Norm Kerr and I returned to the area by helicopter. I remember we found a small field near the railway tracks and Norm practiced hovering at a few feet above the ground, while I got out out onto the landing skid carrying my chain saw. I weighted about 225 lbs. at the time, so it made some difference in the balance of the helicopter. When he got use to the feel of my movement and weight change, we flew into the area where I wished to commence our search from. The area was mostly muskeg with many black spruce trees about 30’ high. We found a spot where there was a large boulder probably dropped there by the glaciers. I remember he went into a hover over the boulder concentrating on a broken spruce tree for reference. I got out of the helicopter onto the skid then jumped the five feet or so to the top of the big boulder. I looked back at the helicopter and Norm was in total concentration. I reached up and slapped the skid twice and Norm took off. When he returned in a half hour or so I had dropped enough trees and made a cross pattern of poles that he could land on the muskeg. We made two landing pads in this manner, and then returned to Wawa.

I had made arrangements with the CNR railway to set up a work train complete with cooking facilities and sleeping quarters on a siding near our starting point. We returned about a week later with a compliment of approximately 22 OPP members. Brian Ringrose was our cook. Most of the crew drove to Hornpayne and the CNR provided transportation to the siding where we were set up. Norm Kerr had arrived with the helicopter and ferried the men into our landing spots. If my memory serves me right, we continued the search for three more days; with no luck. On the fourth day we received word that we would have to stop the search as the helicopter was needed elsewhere. We received the word around noon on the fourth day. I contacted the crew by radio and advised them of the situation. They were pretty disappointed and asked if they could continue their search for the remainder of the day. We filled a packsack with some nourishment, flew over to their location and lowered it to the team in the bush.

It was a pretty disappointed group that returned to our siding that night. This was the only bush search I coordinated in all my years on the OPP that was not successful. The only thing I could think of was that the young woman had stepped into a sinkhole and could not be seen. There were plenty of these areas in the muskeg.

Could I have Made a Difference

As I said earlier in my stories we had many good members in Wawa Detachment. One of them was Walter Purdy. He hailed from the Maritimes, came to Wawa married a local girl and was one of the longest serving members at the Detachment. He had that cheerful maritime personality which people were quick to pick up on. It was common at that Detachment to have someone come in off the road and compliment an officer for a job well done. I can remember more than once, a person coming in that wished to compliment Walter on his professionalism and manner after he had issued them a ticket for a traffic infraction. We didn’t get to many of those. I heard one incident where he had stopped a person for speeding, issued the ticket and as he returned to the violator’s car; a voice from inside the car said something to the effect: Stop Officer wait a minute! As Walter hesitated, a lady jumped out of the car ran around to the driver’s side and said: Okay now! She wanted a picture as Walter served the ticket, to commemorate their trip.

One of the memories I had with Walter concerned our attending to a firearm discharge complaint at a home in Hawk Junction one night in the latter part of the 1970’s. We were both familiar with the subject of the complaint. He was a heavy drinker and was known for his dislike of any form of authority. The alleged perpetrator had been drinking was very belligerent and threatening. We seized all firearms in the house and he made death threats towards us for our action. During the altercation, his wife and children were present and witnessed the whole performance. I will mention one of those children in the following paragraph.

In 1993 I had retired and was teaching in the Law and Security program at Cambrian College at Sudbury.

On the night of October 7th.1993 Constable Joe MacDonald of the Sudbury Police force made a routine traffic stop on Gordon St., in Sudbury. Peter Pennett and Clinton Suzack occupied the car. Suzack was wanted for a parole violation. A gunfight ensued. Constable MacDonald received a vicious beating that included a broken leg. This was finalized by his execution by gunfire. Constable MacDonald had emptied his revolver and succeeded in shooting Suzack twice in the chest and Pennett once in the hand. Suzack and Pennett were both convicted of 1st degree murder and sentence to 25 yrs. in prison. Hopefully they will never get parole.

At the time of this incident police officers were still issued with .38 special calibre revolvers as they were in my time. This firearm was known to often be ineffective in stopping a violent offender. They only held six bullets and were slow to reload even with a speed reloader.

Following this incident Nancy MacDonald Joe’s widow started lobbying for better firearms. I believe a lot of the credit for the more powerful and better all around weapons that are carried by police officers today, goes to her.

Each day as I returned to teach at Cambrian College I passed the area where Constable MacDonald died I had to wonder, Could we have done something different all those years before that would have made a difference. The attached picture is that of Constable Joe MacDonald. May his memory go on.

If you wish to read my previous submissions, they are all stored at the following URL: <garryspolicememories.tumblr.com>

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