Ready to lend a hand
Sunday, 5 July 2026
Mike White is a senior writer and columnist.
OPINION: The weather boffins said it was minus five degrees outside.
The weather boffins are frequently wrong, I find, but this morning, they were about bang on.
Outside, everything had turned fairytale white, hoar frost settling on trees and lawn and anything carelessly left outdoors.
It was brutal and magnificent.
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Smoke curled from every chimney in the village.
We decided to go kayaking.
We dawdled over breakfast, waiting for the sun to rise, but by the the time we left home, it was still minus three, according to the car’s thermometer that warned us roads might be icy.
When we launched, it was almost up to zero, and my partner looked prepped for an Arctic adventure as we pushed off.
The lake was empty, apart from one boat on a nearby island.
As we glided past, four people and a dog walked down the jetty to their runabout.
They had tupperware containers with the remains of morning tea, and I figured their stop was part of a gentle day-long excursion.
But no, they were heading home, they said.
“We’ve just been tidying up the island,” one of the women, rugged in a thick coat, scarf, and woollen hat, said.
Volunteers, they’d given up their mid-winter Saturday morning to perform an icy public service.
As we often visited the island and enjoyed its spectacular lookout, we thanked them, said bye, and paddled off.
Every town has them. Every community relies on them. Everyone is indebted to them.
They’re the people like these ones who give up their own time to help keep places beautiful, or keep things running.
They’re selfless and remarkable.
We headed up the lake, towards mountains still largely bereft of snow, despite the recent chill.
It was up there that Hector Artigau disappeared.
The 21-year-old from Argentina had been working on a Central Otago cherry farm last year, when he and two friends decided to walk to Rob Roy Glacier in Mount Aspiring National Park on Waitangi Day.
It’s an easy walk, with a viewpoint of the glacier at the track’s end, where people eat sandwiches for lunch and pose for photos.
Artigau went a bit further.
Beyond the lookout, a stream running from the glacier’s toe had cut a chasm up to 60m deep through the rock, barely a metre wide in places.
The water boiled and churned and disappeared in the dark.
Artigau warned his colleagues to go back because they didn’t have the right footwear.
They didn’t notice him slip. They didn’t hear him shout. But when they saw his cap in the water as the stream exited the canyon, they instantly feared for their friend.
Panicking, they raced back to the track, and found someone with an emergency locator beacon that they activated.
What that launched was recently celebrated at Parliament.
Those involved in the search for Artigau were presented with the New Zealand Search and Rescue Gold Award, the organisation’s highest accolade, recognising the exceptional efforts to find the Argentinian.
What many don’t realise is that Search and Rescue (SAR) teams are made up almost entirely of volunteers.
So when the locator beacon was activated and his phone pinged, Wānaka builder Roy Bailey was just sitting down to do some study for his skippers’ ticket. Within an hour, he was in a chopper with two other Wānaka SAR members, flying to Rob Roy Stream.
Bailey and more than 40 other volunteers from Wānaka SAR, and its dog team, along with helicopter pilots, local police and the national dive squad, spent 20 days looking for Artigau in conditions that ranged from difficult to dangerous.
At one point, Bailey swore he wasn’t going back into the chasm, saying, “It’s not one of Earth’s kind places.”
But of course he went back, searching, probing, hoping.
In the end, Artigau’s body was never found, a result as deflating for searchers as it was devastating for his family who had flown from Argentina.
In total, the volunteers spent well over 800 hours on the search. More than 20 working weeks. None of it paid.
Last year there were 3258 SAR incidents: 169 lives were saved, and 691 people rescued. A further 800 were assisted.
As we mark International Volunteer Year, it’s just one example of New Zealanders putting their lives on hold to help others.
There’s no desire for acknowledgement or accolade, but it’s nice when others recognise their skill and commitment, such as happened the other week at the Search and Rescue Awards.
For a change, everyone at Parliament was on the same page and happy. They even let the SAR dogs involved in Operation Artigau, Lochie and Bandit, inside and on to the building’s famous black and white tiles.
The dogs got plenty of pats on the head. The volunteers got pats on the back.
It was a long way from the rugged rock and tussock of Mt Aspiring. It was incredibly well deserved.