RCMP's West Coast Marine Services charts their COVID course through February/March/April

Members of the West Coast Marine Service provide RCMP
services to Indigenous and Isolated coastal communities
(From RCMP website)

Ensuring the safety of coast communities is the beat for the RCMP's West Coast Marine Service and over the weekend, they outlined some of their duties of recent weeks as they continued their delivery of law enforcement up and down the North and Central coast to ensure that regions Indigenous communities do not feel isolate or cut off during these challenging times of COVID.

In a post to the BC RCMP website on Saturday a review of some of their travels was provided, with tours of Kitkatla, Lax Kw'alaams and other communities reaching down to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island included in the report.

For their stop over at Lax Kw'laams in late March, they made note their work and the precautions that they took during the COVID pandemic.

In late March, in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown, West Coast Marine conducted foot patrols in the community of Lax Kw'alaams near Prince Rupert. Members wore personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks to respect the community's fear of bringing the COVID-19 virus to their community. 

 The area has remained relatively free of cases or outbreaks. Lax Kw'alaams and many other remote coastal communities in BC have expressed concerns due to the lack of medical facilities and staff to respond if an outbreak were to spread.

Noting how making use of their patrol vessel in effect creates a floating detachment for North and
Central Coast communities Inspector Dee Stewart, the Officer in Charge of Indigenous Police Services explored the focus ahead for the service.

"We are dedicating ourselves to making sure that communities don't feel support from the RCMP is being diminished right now. It is more important now than ever to maintain our presence and connection to the Indigenous communities along BC's coast. 

This has not been an easy time for anyone, as there are so many uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. 

If we can assist by bringing in goods, educational resources, and providing any type of support, we want to ensure that we can contribute to keeping communities safer and healthy."

You can review the full report here.

More items of interest on Emergency Responders in the Northwest can be explored from our archive page here.