The frozen ones
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FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2013
Vol. 104 No. 60 • Established 1908
WEEKEND EDITION
THE VOICE OF VANCOUVER NEIGHBOURHOODS
NEWS: Bike Share 4/ OPINION: Social engineering 10
Searching for closure
photo Mike Howell
AS DANIELA SALMEN CONTINUES THE SEARCH FOR HER HUSBAND’S BODY IN HARRISON LAKE, SHE QUESTIONS WHY SHE HAD TO GO OUT OF COUNTRY FOR HELP MIKE HOWELL Staff writer
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lone aluminum skiff slowly plies the placid waters off the shore of a remote campsite on Harrison Lake, near the small town of Agassiz. Aboard are Gene and Sandy Ralston, a retired couple in their 60s from Idaho, who reached this inviting spot after a 50-minute boat ride from a marina at the south end of the lake. The area is known as Westwood Bay. The surrounding terrain is a mix of dense forest and craggy outcrops that slope down to a rocky, windblown shoreline, which makes the campsite all the more unique in this setting. Once a log-sorting area, the site links to a forestry service road that is best managed in a four-wheel drive
for the one-and-a-half hour trip from the main highway. It’s the road 66-year-old outdoorsman Raymond Salmen travelled May 27 to get here in his Ford truck and camper. The retired millwright drove up with his two small dogs from his home in Kitsilano to fish and hike. Thirteen days after Salmen arrived, he went missing and Agassiz RCMP believe he drowned in the very waters the Ralstons have come to search. The couple was hired by Salmen’s wife, Daniela, who was at the marina to wish the Ralstons good luck before they took their custommade sonar equipment and expertise up the lake. “I can’t say enough about them and how they’ve given me some hope that they’ll find Ray,” she said, standing in the marina’s parking lot last Saturday morning with
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Gene Ralston of Idaho comforts Daniela Salmen, whose husband is believed drowned in Harrison Lake. Gene and his wife Sandy are experts at recovering bodies in deep water. Scan page with Layar to see a video. her dogs, Elmer and Bandit, who were rescued from her husband’s camper. The fact the Ralstons are here is comforting to Daniela. But she is baffled why there isn’t a police force, search and rescue team or some other agency in the province that could do the
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same job. The RCMP says its dive team is restricted by regulations as to how deep it can dive and officers are still training to operate new sonar equipment. Some organizations, such as Kent-Harrison Search and Rescue, have a sonar
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but its capabilities are limited and the team’s volunteer members are not experts on how to use it. Further hampering body recovery efforts for police and others is the absence of a crucial piece of equipment called a remote operated vehicle, or ROV, which the
Ralstons have and is essential to their work. The ROV is an underwater robot, equipped with lights and dual tilting cameras that can be dropped in deep water to search around rocks and debris on the bottom of a lake. Continued on page 14
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