When Robert Laboucan pictured his son taking his first steps he imagined it would be at home, maybe even in front of a camera in their living room. Instead, the one-year-old first walked in the hallway of the Flamingo Inn in High Level, the tiny Alberta town where the family have been living for more than a year after escaping the massive wildfires that devastated the Indigenous-owned Fox Lake Reserve.
“It was really hard,” said Laboucan, a member of the Little Red River Cree Nation.
Laboucan, his partner Jennifer, and their five children, aged one-16, are among dozens of fire evacuees still living at the hotel. While they will not get an exact replacement of the home they lost, Laboucan has been told that a new home will be ready for the family by July – approximately 14 months after the 2023 Paskwa fire tore through the Little Red River Cree Nation.
And a year later, as Canada braces for another hot summer, many Indigenous communities in the northern parts of the western provinces are still displaced.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Instead, the one-year-old first walked in the hallway of the Flamingo Inn in High Level, the tiny Alberta town where the family have been living for more than a year after escaping the massive wildfires that devastated the Indigenous-owned Fox Lake Reserve.
When he returned to the harbor, Laboucan found there was not enough room for him and his family on the barge – but they managed to escape on a motorboat brought in by fellow town members.
A study conducted by a coalition of scientists from Canada, the UK and Netherlands found drilling for fossil fuels lead to a 20% increase in fire-prone weather, with fires 20% more likely to be intense.
Indigenous cultures have traditionally seen wildfires as a form of natural rejuvenation, but elders say that the reality of climate crisis has become impossible to ignore – and many communities are organizing to make sure they are ready.
During last year’s disastrous Donnie Creek Fire – the largest in Alberta’s history – Doig River surveyed community members to work out how to improve their evacuation procedures.
Two weeks after the evacuation alert for Doig River First Nation ended on 20 May, the community gathered in Fort St John to break ground on a new urban reserve.
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