For many lifeguards in Vancouver, the lifestyle spans generations

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When word came that Kits pool was reopening on Aug. 7, Kat Town called in to Kitsilano Tower, the Vancouver lifeguard dispatch centre located atop a salty bunker on Kits beach.

“I wanted to be there,” said Town, who was head guard at Kits pool during Expo 86 and through 1988.

“It was crazy busy,” said Town, of the pool’s glory days. “We had lineups from before it opened and were at full capacity right up until closing.”

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Now 71, Town has been a lifeguard since 1968. A lot has changed since then.

“When I first came to the Coast from the Interior in 1970, I was told, ‘Sorry, women cannot lifeguard,’ ” said Town, who had worked as a certified lifeguard in the Interior for several years.

No women was a Vancouver thing. “They said women couldn’t handle the beach, they wouldn’t be able to carry paddle boards down, or stop fights between men.”

Town joined a handful of other female lifeguards in Vancouver in 1977. Since then, she has de-escalated a few fights and done her share of rescues.

Lifeguards share a sense of family as team members, but in Vancouver a growing number of intergenerational families are working to keep Vancouver’s beaches and pools safe.

Dozens of local lifeguards have passed the legacy down to their kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews, making lifesaving a family tradition.

“I didn’t really have a choice,” said Town’s daughter, Tia Town-Schon. “It’s the family business.”

Her mother, father, brother, sister and grandmother all lifeguarded, and now her 13-year-old niece Delaila is on track to train as a lifeguard, said Town-Schon, 41.

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Lifeguarding takes more than a love of the outdoors, said Town-Schon, who started lifeguarding at 17, and served as head guard at Kits pool from 2020-23.

It takes intense concentration to scan the water in 10-30 second intervals, always alert, noticing who seems unsure, who might be new to the water, and who is not staying within arm’s reach of their kid.

It also takes selflessness. Town-Schon has swum across the rusty pipe of a storm sewer outflow during a rescue, through seaweed, and barnacles that tore up her skin.

She never hesitates.

“If I’m running in for a rescue I’m going to blow a whistle, get a hand on a walkie talkie, call for back up and I’m gonna go. The other lifeguards are going to cover my water, and back me up if I need it,” said Town-Shon.

There is an implicit trust between team members that comes from their training.

“You know you are going to work as a team. If I’m working with someone who has collapsed, I know someone else is going to clear the area, someone else is going to show up with the defibrillator.”

Lifeguards respond to everything, from “minors” like Band-Aid level scrapes, to “majors” like water rescues. And yes, when you go into the water for a pee, they see that, too.

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Newly minted lifeguard Rian McCririck, 18, is from a lifeguard family. His mom Stacy McCririck lifeguarded from the age of 16, and all through university, before moving to Vancouver in 1994 where she started in the outdoor system and stayed until transitioning into a career in recreation in 2000.

Stacy has fond memories of her days as a beach lifeguard in Ladysmith.

“It was a great job, there were only two of us, we alternated teaching swimming lessons in the morning and we tanned — no sunscreen.”

The job was unionized, paid enough to fund her college tuition, and “the culture was healthy and fun,” said Stacy. “Working outside, I became very happy.”

Although the ratio of pay to Vancouver’s cost-of-living, and the job’s seasonal nature makes it challenging as a profession, it’s still a great job for students who want to work summers and have flexibility, as well as teachers and others who want a casual gig.

In Vancouver, indoor lifeguard positions start between $25.21 to $29.63 an hour, while outdoor lifeguard positions start at $30.81. Lifeguards must complete a challenging 135-hour program to get certified, and have to recertify every two years to prove their skills are still sharp.

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To earn the coveted yellow and red uniform, lifeguards pass Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross levels, and complete the Standard First Aid / CPR and National Lifeguard — Pool Course and National Lifeguard — Waterfront Training (for those wanting to be a beach lifeguard). Up to 70 per cent of the cost of the courses is subsidized for Vancouver leisure access program members.

“It was a weird reversal of roles to go from being a kid at the pool to being a lifeguard,” said Rian, recalling his first shifts on deck at New Brighton pool last summer. He felt invisible as kids splashed around him. He was no longer one of them, but watching over them.

Having a lifeguard parent gave him the confidence to power through his certifications, and his doubts. Throughout his training, he tried to convince other friends to join him, but they expressed worries about the responsibility.

“They just don’t think they could save somebody,” said Rian. “But as a younger lifeguard, you’ll always be working with someone more senior who can help you. It’s a team, and you are never alone.”

That sense of teamwork and community was something Steve Foellmer, 60, treasured during his lifeguarding days. It also influenced his decision to become a firefighter.

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“You are working together with others and helping people,” said Foellmer, who lifeguarded for 13 years before he traded in his swim trunks for a Vancouver Fire and Rescue uniform.

It’s not unusual for lifeguards to go on to become first responders, firefighters, police officers, paramedics and coast guard members.

And sometimes they come back.

Foellmer recently retired as a Vancouver Fire Rescue battalion chief, and recertified as a lifeguard.

He can’t wait to get out on the rowboat on Spanish Banks West at low tide, plant his oar in the sand and take it all in.

That’s where the swimmers tend to misjudge the drop off, where walkers get stuck on sand islands with the tide coming in fast from all sides, and the occasional windsurfer blows out past the mile markers.

“Oh, man I miss it: standing out on the beach with your row boat, watching the beach, the waves washing up, the rocking of the boat beside you, the sun shining down, the wind fresh, but not too cold. What a feeling!”

If he’s lucky, he’ll land a few pool deck shifts with his son McConnell, a UVic biochemistry student who is this summer’s head lifeguard at New Brighton pool, or son Quinn who just worked his first lifeguarding shift.

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“It’s pretty cool my dad’s coming back,” said McConnell, 23, who was surprised to walk into the English Bay bathhouse recently to see a 35-year-old snapshot of his dad in Baywatch-style short shorts and sunglasses supervising a line of triathlon swimmers emerging from the water.

“The job is very social, and there is a lot of history to it. He has a lot of friends from back in the day, but I think the social aspect might have been a little wilder back then than it is now,” said McConnell.

He’s heard the stories.

Former lifeguards Karen Wheatcroft and Jeff McNeill stopped on the way to their marriage ceremony in 1993, purloined a Spanish Banks West lifeguarding rowboat and went for a paddle in full wedding attire — a prank Jeff says probably wouldn’t be allowed today.

They don’t want to go into detail about the legendary “lifeguard parties” of the 1980s, when the beach’s red light flipped on, signalling that lifeguard duties were over, but admit they had “a lot of fun.”

“We were living the beach dream,” said Wheatcroft, who lifeguarded for 25 years.

“It might be a little tamer now,” said Jeff.

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The couple first met at lifeguard school as teenagers in 1984, but sparks didn’t fly until 1987 when they were both guarding at Second Beach pool.

Their son Kyle, 23, grew up as a “swim baby,” became a lifeguard, worked five days a week during the pandemic, and is now doing regular casual shifts around his day job in film.

“Your super power as a lifeguard is communication: being friendly, being good with tourists, being understanding with parents, helping lost kids, help parents who have lost kids, and being compassionate,” said Kyle.

Dad Jeff eventually became a paramedic but says lifeguarding was the best job he ever had. “You work outdoors at a place people would leave work to get to.”

If you are doing the job right, said Jeff, you are preventing the need to rescue people by recognizing weak swimmers and people heading out too deep before they get into trouble.

When Second Beach pool’s turtle slide was placed in the wrong spot after a renovation, shooting kids into deep water, he was right there plucking them out by the dozen with a reach pole.

“I like to remember that I never got wet,” said McNeill.

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The turtle slide was eventually moved to shallower waters, after lifeguards showed the rescue numbers.

Certification for lifeguards includes a “wet” test that, for beach lifeguards, is a rescue drill that includes a timed 100-metre run, 100-metre swim, 100-metre tow, use of watercraft (rowboat or float), and demonstration of lifesaving measures.

“We always need more lifeguards,” said Kimiko Hirakida, program director at the Lifesaving Society’s B.C. and Yukon branch. Lifeguards were in short supply during the pandemic when training and certifications were paused. The shortage led to closures at some pools.

Numbers are improving. In 2022, 1740 National Lifeguard candidates were certified in the province. In 2023 that jumped to 2207, bringing the total number of certified lifeguards in B.C. up to 6,040.

The shortage was also due to what Hirakida calls “a generational shift.”

Younger lifeguards are spread thinner with school, are prioritizing their personal lives, and may be more likely to sign on as part-timers rather than full-timers, said Hirakida.

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While you don’t need to be a family member to get certified as a lifeguard — and it won’t help you pass the tests — those who grew up in lifeguard families know it’s more than a job they are signing up for.

“It’s a lifestyle,” said Town, who savoured every moment working Kits pool’s long-awaited opening. “Sunshine, blue skies … everyone was happy. It was a glorious day.”

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