In Canada, search and rescue (SAR) is a shared responsibility among federal, provincial or territorial, and municipal governments, and air, ground, and maritime volunteer SAR organizations. Because of Canada’s vast size and range of environments, Canada relies on a diverse group of government, military, volunteer, academic, and industry partners to provide overall SAR services to the Canadian public.
Provincial and territorial governments are responsible for conducting searches for persons who are lost or overdue on land or inland waters. These persons are referred to as “being lost” or “missing”; the search is commonly known as “ground search and rescue” (GSAR), and it is often delegated to the police service of the jurisdiction. In Canada there are over 300 volunteer GSAR teams that assist the responding police service by providing the human resources necessary for a ground search, as well as specialized expertise, equipment, and local knowledge. GSAR programs, equipment, and personnel vary geographically in accordance with local needs and available resources. GSAR team members require specialized training, practice, dedication, and hard work.

CGSARA is a group of volunteers that form a Ground Search and Rescue Team, which is a self-directed and managed community organization. CGSARA is organized, trained, and equipped, to locate, access, stabilize, and transport to safety, person or persons lost and/or injured in wilderness, wilderness interface areas, an inland waterways of the Province, in accordance with the Emergency Management Office (EMO) of Nova Scotia. We are a non-profit, charitable organization registered under the registry of joint stocks in the province of Nova Scotia.

We charge a $1.00 membership fee which is paid yearly at the annual general meeting (held in April). This and attendance keeps a member in good standing and gives the member voting status. Our group also has membership guidelines, a code of conduct and code of ethics, which we expect all members to follow. You are expect to support by participation in as many fundraising activities as possible as this is our means of providing monies for training, and purchasing equipment. Our main fund raising activities include parking at Riverside Speedway Races, Town of Truro Biker Blessing, Santa Claus Parade marshalling and other functions. We strive to provide free training to all our members. Our training involves map & compass, survival skills, rope rescue, communications, search theory and tactics, First Aid, Remote Rescue, Medical First Response, and tracking. We try to hold mock searches on a quarterly basis which involves a weekend. We also conduct 1 Day a month training activities, to refresh skills, and confirm new skills learned.

We require all members of the team to complete training to the searcher level before moving to any specialized skill within the team. This ensure that all persons have a solid foundation in search and rescue operations, Navigation skills, Map and GPS, as well as have a full understanding of communication equipment and procedures. For those members not able to make the commitment to training we have an Associate membership, these members support the associations by partaking in non search type activities thus they have no requirements to attend training.   The main focus of the associate membership is to assist the team in fund raising activities, community activities, support with maintenance of team equipment and facilities, and to promote the teams to the public.