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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
Every year wildfires make headlines, break records and touch the lives of more Canadians across the country. Cataclysmic fires, sudden evacuations and dangerous smoke are our new reality. In today’s newsletter, wildfire survivors from Lytton and Kelowna in B.C. and Fort McMurray and Jasper in Alberta share what they learned after the devastation.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- At home: Your fall gardening to-do list
- Finance: Carney-championed Net-Zero Banking Alliance shuts down after losing most of its members
- Analysis: Canada’s industrial carbon pricing system is a mess. Here’s how Carney can fix it
- In memory of: Jane Goodall, primate expert and conservationist, dies at 91
- From The Decibel: The uncertain future of the multibillion-dollar lobster fishing industry
- Sharks: Scientists play a dangerous game to learn why Atlantic Canada has more white sharks
- Agriculture: Meet the migrant workers Canadian farmers depend on to harvest their crops
A deeper dive
Residents watch the McDougall Creek wildfire burn in West Kelowna, B.C., in August 2023.DARREN HULL/AFP/Getty Images
Out of the fire
For this week’s deeper dive, wildfire survivors share what they’ve learned about starting over.
As this year’s wildfire season slows down, we can’t forget how many lives have been touched. To try to grasp how loss on such a large scale affects people and communities, The Globe and Mail talked to people who lived through Canada’s biggest wildfires of the past 15 years. They share the hard lessons they’ve learned, and how they made themselves whole again. Don’t forget to read the full story from Nancy Macdonald, Claire McFarlane and Sophia Coppolino.
Jasper, Alta., 2024
Wendy Wacko, a 74-year-old artist, was hosting a dinner party. An evacuation alert landed at 8:28 p.m, but it said there was “no immediate threat.” Barely 90 minutes later, an evacuation order came blaring from their phones. Two days later, a 10-storey wall of 1,000-degree flames entered Jasper.
“I loved the art collection I had. I loved, loved it. But the most important lesson Dwain and I have learned is that the relationships, the friends you surround yourself with, are the most important thing in life.”
She lost her scarf collection, cherished letters from her dad and loved ones, and her wedding ring.
“The fire changed Dwain and I. The whole situation made me love my husband more than I ever dreamt was possible. We’re kinder to each other. Our relationship is deeper. That’s what matters. Not the ring.”
A cyclist takes in a heavily damaged neighbourhood as residents start to return to Jasper, Alta., in August 2024.AMBER BRACKEN/The Canadian Press
West Kelowna, B.C., 2023
Aug. 18, was smokier than usual in West Kelowna, where Heather MacKay lives. Having moved to interior B.C. three years prior, the MacKay family had adjusted to the threat of wildfires. That night, the McDougall Creek fire jumped the lake to their neighbourhood, eventually displacing 35,000 people and burning more than 300 buildings, including the MacKays’ home.
For six weeks the family was separated, moving through seven different homes. Dispossessed of four decades of belongings, Heather and her family were left with only gym bags of clothes and each other.
In the following months, any signs of smoke sent her into a spiral. But the goodness of people has stayed with her. She tries to laugh all she can, allowing the heaviness to roll off her shoulders. Her lifestyle has completely changed: She doesn’t live in a big house and she doesn’t have the luxuries she used to. But Heather does have her friends and family, and she received support from communities she didn’t realize she was a part of.
Lytton, B.C., 2021
There aren’t many conversations Meghan Fandrich has with community members that don’t mention the fire that tore through her hometown of Lytton in 2021. After the fire, Fandrich had enough in the bank to issue final paycheques to her employees, but not much else.
The trauma of surviving a wildfire goes far beyond the fire itself; it has permanently altered the landscape of her life. Part of the trauma, she said, manifested in her hesitation to leave her house, even for essential trips. Lytton still doesn’t have a grocery store, which means that she has to drive two hours each way to buy food.
In the years since the fire, Heather has published a book of poetry called Burning Sage, which chronicles the blaze and its aftermath, and lent her voice to climate activism. She’s travelled as far as Ottawa to persuade parliamentarians to take greenhouse-gas emissions, which make wildfires more frequent and severe, more seriously.
Wildfire crews search for hot spots in a burned-out forest near Fort McKay, Alta., in June 2016.Ian Willms
Fort McMurray, Alta., 2016
Jon Tupper, his wife and their three-year-old daughter had moved into a house in the Fort McMurray neighbourhood of Thickwood Heights about a year before a wildfire hit. The Tuppers were among the lucky ones: Their house survived the fire, though the roof had to be replaced after water dropped from a water bomber tore the shingles off.
The blaze took a toll on the community, John said, because among those who had home insurance, some received compensation faster than others, allowing them to recover quicker.
Some people are still fighting with their insurance companies over their claims while others had no coverage at all, he said.
Tupper recommends all wildfire survivors seek out mental health support, even if they think they don’t need it. In community groups on Facebook he has offered this advice to those who fled wildfires in Yellowknife in 2023 and in Jasper in 2024.
What else you missed
- Class action lawsuit against Horne smelter and Quebec government authorized by Superior Court
- Federal officials showed interest in proposed Quebec LNG project, documents show
- Marineland disappointed by denial of request to export beluga whales to China
- Saturn’s moon Enceladus may be able to support life, scientists say
Opinion and analysis
Lawrence Martin: Catherine McKenna’s memoir trashes Trudeau. So why was the carbon-tax-killing Carney spared?
Green Investing
Alberta’s pipeline pitch forces a thorny debate back into full view
Alberta’s plan to propose a pipeline to the West Coast, announced Wednesday, is not fully formed. It does not have the backing of a company to shoulder the financial risk, or even a detailed route. It has already attracted the ire of British Columbia’s Premier and First Nations that have opposed previous attempts to export oil from B.C.’s North Coast.
It revisits a number of thorny issues, including Alberta’s aims to increase access to the Asian oil market; Indigenous rights and title; and national climate commitments.
The Climate Exchange
We’ve launched the The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. We have been collecting hundreds of questions and posing them to experts. The answers can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. You can ask a question using this form.
Photo of the week
Pope Leo attends the three-day Raising Hope for Climate Justice international conference in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome on Oct. 1.Yara Nardi/Reuters
Guides and Explainers
- Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
- We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP29 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
- We have ways to make your travelling more sustainable and if you like to read, here are books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills - Little Steps to Big Change.
Catch up on Globe Climate
- How one activist found compassion in jail
- PFAS in the water
- Wildfire ash speeds up glacier melt
- Strategizing the fight against wildfires
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