Contacting someone while they are on trip 

There are two types of emergency evacuations for Headwaters backcountry trips ("backcountry trips" are defined as those outside of regular road access and/or cellular service).

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Type 1 Evacuations: Those initiated from within the trip

• Any reason causing an emergency evacuation (either by Headwaters staff or by emergency services) of one or more member(s) of the trip.

• Headwaters will manage the evacuation and will get in contact with the listed emergency contacts of the relevant individuals as the situation requires and permits.

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Type 2 Evacuations: Those initiated from outside the trip

• Emergencies for which someone not on the trip (i.e., a family member back home) needs to contact a participant on the trip for the purpose of bringing the participant home early.

• Type 2 Evacuations are the purpose of this contact page.

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Contact Procedure for Type 2 Evacuations

• This procedure is strictly for emergencies requiring a trip participant to leave the trip and come home early. No participant can be evacuated for non-emergency reasons.

• Due to the nature of our trips, evacuating a participant will take a minimum of one full day and may not be possible at all if geographic, weather, or other factors make it unsafe to do so.

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Procedure:

1. Send an email to: emergencycontact@headwaterswildernessprogram.ca

   • ​NO OTHER CONTACT METHOD (no other Headwaters email nor phone number) has guaranteed monitoring during trips. DO NOT use any other method of contact!

2. Include: 1) Your full name, 2) The participant's full name, 3) Your phone number, 4) The emergency reason for which the participant must return home.

3. Your email will go to Headwaters' city-based emergency contact coordinator. The coordinator will liaise with you to determine whether an evacuation is necessary. If an evacuation is necessary, the coordinator will contact the Headwaters staff on the trip via a satellite messenger to plan the evacuation. Due to battery restrictions, we are unable to pass-on non-emergency messages to trip staff.

4. In order to preserve battery life on the satellite messenger for emergency situations, staff on the trip will check their messages once per day (in the morning). Messages sent to the above email will likewise be checked once per day (in the evening).

5. Evacuations are time consuming, costly, and potentially dangerous. For this reason, and to maintain the safety of the overall trip, Headwaters reserves the right evaluate each situation and determine if an evacuation is warranted, necessary, and possible.

6. Reasons an evacuation may not proceed include: weather or other factors which make it unsafe to do so; the time needed for an evacuation is longer than the remaining time in the trip; the reason for evacuating the participant does not constitute an emergency.