A new club is forming in Tofino to prevent drownings and critical injuries on local beaches.
Krissy Montgomery and Laura Lunty presented the plan to Tofino’s municipal council during Aug. 20’s regular meeting suggesting the freshly launched Tofino Surf Lifesaving Club was struck to help increase safety in local surf zones.
Montgomery is the owner of Surf Sister, a CoastSmart Ambassador and founder of the Queen of the Peak surf championships. She said she has been involved in the local surf industry for over 20 years and spoke to the lobbying efforts, including petitions, urging the federal government to return the former surf guard program to Long Beach, which was lost in 2012.
Long Beach is within the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and not Tofino’s jurisdiction and Montgomery suggested that while a top-down approach with petitions to the federal government has not brought lifeguards to Long Beach, a ground-up approach could bring lifeguards to Tofino’s local beaches through the launch of the new Tofino Surf Lifesaving Club.
“This is all very new. We’ve only been working on this for about a month from the side of our desks,” she said, adding the club’s mission statement is “To educate and promote ocean safety across Tofino’s beaches by providing education, training and equipment.”
She said four key areas of focus are to prevent drowning and injuries, foster lifesaving culture through training and education, provide beaches with lifesaving equipment and empower beachgoers to enjoy Tofino safely.
She added that long-term goals include employing seasonal lifeguards, developing a youth program as well as building public safety kiosks and storage sheds for equipment.
“Our dream vision would be to eventually have a clubhouse where we could meet, assemble as a club and practice,” she said.
Lunty suggested the club’s “general plan of attack” is to raise awareness in the upcoming fall months with the hope of providing training and certifications for members in the spring of 2025 and have a beach ambassador program in place by next summer.
“This fall we’re hoping to sort of drop the bomb about what we’re doing, have a membership drive and establish key partnerships,” she said.
She added they are working on a website and hope to have membership meetings and a beach ambassador program starting in the winter.
“We’re hoping to have our members volunteer next summer on the beach during peak surf hours to advise visitors and locals about safe zones,” she said.
She added they are collaborating with Parks Canada to strike a similar Coastal Steward program and to create public safety campaigns and also provide “a face on the beach if visitors have questions about a safe zone to surf or play in the ocean.”
Montgomery said the club is hoping to work with the district on improved beach safety infrastructure like safety kiosks and lifesaving equipment as well as program advertising in the recreation guide and use of the community hall for meetings.
She added funding will also be necessary for programming and training en route to a seasonal lifeguard staff.
“It’s going to be so essential. The first couple of years, the way we see most of the funding being used would be running as many training programs as possible just so that we can get our membership base up to par, eventually leading on we’re hoping to switch our funding more so to incorporate paid, seasonal lifeguards at local beaches,” she said.
“We wanted to give you guys a heads up because as we’re building the bones of this club we realize how important it is to have partnerships established with everybody.”
Lunty added the club is also seeking guidance and suggestions from council on different avenues for support.
“These are our best ideas, but we’d be really interested in hearing what your thoughts were and how we can work together. I think we’re just ready to see some action in this area,” she said.
The town’s council seemed unanimously thrilled with the idea.
“I think that this is fantastic,” said Coun. Sarah Sloman.
“It’s great to see a volunteer organization caring and doing great things for the community and we’ll look to support it as much as we can,” added Coun. Al Anderson.
“It really does take a community champion to bring that forward,” said Coun. Tom Stere. “Thank you for taking this on.”
Stere suggested the group take a more regional approach rather than just relying on Tofino specifically.
“It’s Tofino Lifesaving Club and it’s very geographically specific. I wonder if there’s been any thought within the club so far of broadening out to a more regional approach where we might be able to look at bringing in the ACRD for example and the District of Ucluelet in terms of those partnerships and collaboration and potentially expanding the scope of the operation.”
Lunty responded that the team is focusing on Tofino to get started in a realistic and feasible way without pursuing a larger, region-wide goal out of the gate .
“We thought we would narrow in on our local beaches, but be completely open to working with other agencies. If Ukee wanted to start up a club, we’d be more than happy to give them all of the work that we’ve done and pass it on. We just wanted to try to stay attainable to start, but we’re definitely open to partnerships and growing bigger,” she said.
“We really want to start it community driven. We want to have buy-in from members who are living here year-round…“We want it to feel organic and not that we’re pushing it on every single municipality or beach.”
Coun. Duncan McMaster expressed support for the plan, but added he would be interested to see how the insurance process plays out.
“It’s a great idea and I wish you all the success. It’s been a long time coming,” he said.
Montgomery responded they have researched and reached out to various insurance companies and reiterated that the initial approach would be land-based education and outreach.
“We are not lifeguards. We are not going to be lifeguarding at the beaches anytime soon until a few more things fall into place,” she said.
The lifesaving club plans to launch a membership drive during Tofino’s Queen of the Peak surf competition at the end of September.
