UPDATE: After six days of searching, Parks Canada Visitor Safety personnel located and recovered Sgt. Mark Salesse at approximately 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11. The RCMP released the news Wednesday night at 9 p.m., after the family was notified by members of 17 Wing Winnipeg.
An investigation by the Lake Louise RCMP and Calgary medical examiner is ongoing.
Salesse, a 44-year-old search and rescue technician, was on an authorized training exercise, Feb. 5, when he was swept off a ledge by a wall of snow. It’s believed he fell about 110 metres before being submerged beneath more than two metres of snow.
Lisa Paulson, a visitor safety specialist for Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks, was a member of the search team.
She said, as a member of the search and rescue family, it was an honour to bring closure to Salesse's family and friends.
“We should recognize that Sgt. Salesse died conducting search and rescue training in the service of our country,” she said. “Our condolences really go out to the family, friends and colleagues of Sgt. Mark Salesse.”
Because of a high avalanche danger and a significant accumulation of precipitation both before and after the incident, Parks Canada’s visitor safety team was unable to safely deploy a ground team until Monday, Feb. 9, and it was unable to find Salesse until Feb. 11.
On Feb. 10, a ground team and two rescue dogs were on the ground, searching for six hours, eliminating large portions of the search zone and honing in on two priority areas.
“There was a faint indication from the dog and a very faint Recco signal, which was picked up with our receiver,” said Paulson. “Recco is a receiver that receives radar signals that can come from some clothing—some manufacturers insert Recco tags into their clothing—but we're not sure if Mark had such tabs in his clothing, it is thought that he may not have, but we're not sure.”
“When you get a signal like that you hope that it's the individual and not a backpack or something like that.
“On Wednesday, we went into the accident scene with high hopes that what we were picking up was Sgt. Salesse.”
By 11:30 a.m., the team had a successful probe strike and 45 minutes later, it was confirmed that it was in fact Saleese, and by 1:30 p.m. he had been evacuated together with the ground team and transferred into the care of the RCMP.
Jasperite Manu Loir-mongazon reported Salesse missing, Feb. 5.
While driving the Icefields Parkway late that night, Loir-mongazon came across a man waving a light on the side of the highway. He was standing next to a truck, fully decked out in ice climbing gear, with a harness and crampons still on his body.
He was was looking for help.
According to Loir-mongazon, the man had been climbing on Polar Circus, about 27 kilometres north of Saskatchewan Crossing on the west side of Cirrus Mountain, when his climbing partner was swept away by an avalanche.
“He asked me if I had a phone and I was like, ‘well ya I have a phone, but there’s no service here.’ I asked him what was going on and he said ‘my buddy got caught in an avalanche and I can’t find him.’
“He was in shock, and I was like, ‘when, what time, what do you mean you can’t find him?’ And he was like, ‘well, last time I saw him it was 6 o’clock in Polar Circus on the second ledge and he got caught there and I can’t find him and I just got out.’ That was at about 10:45 p.m.”
After waiting to see if the man’s truck would start, Loir-mongazon continued on to the Sunwapta Warden Station to call Parks Canada for help, while the climber made his way toward Lake Louise.
“I called from Sunwapta, I told them the whole story and then I just kept going and then I texted the guy as soon as I got to town and he just answered me this morning [Feb. 6], just saying thanks.”
Salesse, a search and rescue technician from 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron based in Winnipeg, was on a training exercise along with three other SAR Techs, whose names have not been released.
At this time, the Royal Canadian Air Force is not providing any information about the exercise as it’s conducting an internal investigation to find out the specific details of what happened, both leading up to the event and after it, as well as what factors contributed to the incident.
Although she couldn’t provide specifics, Cpt. Bettina McCulloch-Drake of 17 Wing Winnipeg said training exercises are planned well in advance and each of the SAR Techs on Polar Circus was trained for the conditions.
“Preparedness is the key to dealing with any emergency situation and the SAR Techs take this to heart,” she wrote in an email. “Not only are they training on a regular basis (monthly training to practice certain skill-sets is not uncommon), but SAR Techs also participate in a yearly exercise—called SAREX—testing their ability to deal with a variety of emergency scenarios.
“Sgt. Salesse and the other three SAR Techs who were with him were experienced climbers who had conducted other such climbs,” she continued.
Polar Circus is a famous ice climbing route, with 700 metres of elevation gain, 500 metres of which is waterfall ice.
It’s located south of the Weeping Wall on the west flank of Cirrus Mountain on the east side of the Columbia Icefield.
According to numerous climbing websites, avalanches are a serious hazard in the area.
It was because of that hazard that Parks’ visitor safety team had to undertake avalanche control work before starting its ground search.
“That’s not uncommon,” said Rick Kubian, a resource conservation manager for Parks Canada. “Our key element here is to ensure that area is safe for our staff to work in as we go into a recovery operation like this.
“There was active avalanche control with explosives done on the 7th in the Polar Circus area in an attempt to ensure we’re creating conditions there that make it safe for our staff to get out on the ground.”
Although safer for the visitor safety team, triggering further avalanches can greatly alter the search environment.
“It could complicate it or it could simplify it, depending on how the debris comes down,” said Kubian. “It is really a challenging scenario, but there is no doubt that that mitigation is required to get staff safely out on the ground, so to even be able to search we have to complete that control work.
“It’s not as though we have a choice as to whether to do that.”
Salesse served in the Canadian Armed Forces for more than 22 years, originally joining the reserves, then transferring to the regular force as an infantryman with 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry in 1998.
In 2004, he was accepted for the 11-month SAR Tech training course and successfully completed it. His 10-year career as a SAR Tech has seen him employed with Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons in Comox, B.C., Goose Bay, Nlfd. and Winnipeg, Man.
He moved to Winnipeg in June of 2012 to work with the 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron.
In an interview with Global News, Salesse’s mother, Liz Quinn, said her son was a gentle, giving person.
“Be assured, there is an angel in the Rockies. When you go travelling, whisper his name, because he is there.”
Nicole Veerman
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