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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
In Canada, it’s never too early to start thinking about wildfire season. Today we’re looking to the future and the past to make sense of the state of fire, healing, and preparation in the country.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- From Earth Day: Consider the buffalo and how everything depends on nature
- Finance: Canada’s financial system needs to recognize value of natural assets, report says
- Oil and gas: Enbridge launches $4-billion expansion of B.C. pipeline system for natural gas
- Indigenous rights: B.C. courts uphold right of U.S. Indigenous group to challenge magnesium mine
- Space: Canadian astronaut Kutryk to fly to space station this fall
- Gardening: Zach Galifianakis applies comic touch to his enlightening gardening show
A deeper dive
Mike Kimble, a general contractor in Enterprise, Northwest Territories, shows a picture of wildfires near his house. In 2023, the hamlet was destroyed by wildfire and Kimble returned home to clean up the community.PAT KANE/The Globe and Mail
Recovering from the ashes
For this week’s deeper dive, a look at the healing and preparation needed ahead of the 2026 fire season.
Canada is looking ahead with concerns about readiness for the 2026 fire season, while parts of the country are still searching for answers and recovery from fire seasons of the past.
When a wildfire tore through the Enterprise, NWT community in 2023, it swallowed at least 80 per cent of the hamlet. Within a matter of hours, most of the town was reduced to twisted metal and ash. It was among the hardest hit during that wildfire season. Today, a fractured community is still recovering.
Darren Sopel outside the small ATCO trailer where he currently lives in Enterprise after his home was destroyed by wildfire in 2023.PAT KANE/The Globe and Mail
The 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive in recorded Canadian history. But recovery in Enterprise has been especially slow and complicated. Now, with only a fraction of former residents still living in the community, many are losing hope that the situation will improve.
Many looking to rebuild are facing their own financial hurdles. Uninsured residents were not eligible for assistance from territorial and federal governments unless they could prove they had been denied coverage.
Those who have been displaced long enough lost their status as an Enterprise resident, meaning they can’t participate in the local council. Because so few candidates ran in the last election, they were acclaimed rather than voted in.
Some are no longer actively trying to move back.
An aerial view of Enterprise in November.PAT KANE/The Globe and Mail
Now, looking ahead, dry conditions from this winter in British Columbia, northern Manitoba and the eastern NWT have stoked fears of another relentless season this year.
Canada’s wildland firefighters are simultaneously dealing with aging aircraft, staffing shortages and other concerns about readiness as they head into another prospective busy summer. Last year’s fire season burned close to 8.9 million hectares across Canada, forcing more than 75,000 people from their homes.
Matthew Crawley, VP of corporate affairs for a defence and aerospace company that helps maintain Manitoba’s water bombers, says finding (and paying) pilots to fly water bombers is another problem.
The federal government is giving $316.7-million to Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) over the next five years to increase their aerial firefighting capacity, with aircraft available for the 2026 wildfire season.
Kelsey Winter, executive director at CIFFC said more information will be released in May.
What else you missed
- N.L. government approves emissions hikes for Cenovus oil field project, Vale nickel mine
- Countries meet in Colombia for summit aimed at transitioning away from fossil fuels
- Despite headwinds, ambitious ‘deep retrofits’ charge forward in name of decarbonization
- El Nino likely to return as early as May, impacting global weather patterns
- Forty years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster, Ukraine’s Chernobyl plant is haunted by war
Opinion and analysis
How Canada can protect its food system in an increasingly uncertain world
The next harvest will depend not only on rain and sunshine, but also on decisions made far beyond farm fields: in energy markets, fertilizer plants, and geopolitical negotiations.
— Asim Biswas, Canada Research Chair in digital agriculture
After the passing of Biruté Galdikas, primates need a next generation of protectors
Across the globe, scientists, conservationists, and local communities are working tirelessly to protect primates. But they need public support, which means a shift in how we think about these animals. Dr. Biruté Galdikas showed us how to make that shift.
— Keriann McGoogan, author of Sisters of the Jungle: The Trailblazing Women Who Shaped the Study of Wild Primates
Business and investing
Ottawa won’t commit to launching national flood insurance program in near future
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill as several parts of the country were under flood warnings, Federal Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski said the government is still looking into a flood insurance program.
The program was first promised by former prime minister Justin Trudeau during the 2019 federal election campaign. A 2022 report by Canada’s Task Force on Flood Insurance and Relocation said almost 90 per cent of all flooding losses came from the top 10 per cent highest-risk homes.
- Ottawa orders inquiry into manufactured wood product imports in latest protectionist move
- Ottawa favours southern route for new Alberta-B.C. pipeline, sources say
- North or south? How potential pipeline routes to the West Coast would differ
Photo of the week
Farm Manager Josh Jackson (L) and farm worker Fletcher Sceats muster stock on horseback at Withers Farm in New Zealand last week. Farmers across New Zealand's hill country are adapting to soaring diesel and fertiliser prices by reviving horse-powered mustering and redirecting spending toward fencing, as farm input costs climb to their highest levels in years.Fiona Goodall/Getty Images
Guides and Explainers
- We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP30 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
- We have ideas to make your travelling more sustainable, your lifestyle at home more ecofriendly, and to talk to your kids about climate change.
- In a series of essays from writers exploring the role The Globe and Mail has played in Canada’s history, A Nation’s Paper also highlights the journey of the newspaper’s green evolution.