Jasperites have always known in the back of their minds that, as far as natural disasters go, when it comes to our biggest threat, wildfire is at the top of the list.
We live in the middle of the Canadian boreal forest, at the confluence of three valleys, all choked, over the last decade, with beetle-killed trees.
“I don’t sleep much,” a former Jasper fire chief told me once.
Other western Canadian communities not far from us have burned. Slave Lake. Lytton. Fort Mac. For the last handful of years, Alberta and B.C. have been a mess of evacuations and wildfire emergencies. Every summer we have close calls. Heck, in spring of 2017, with all of our loved ones watching, my wife and I said our marriage vows while helicopters buzzed overhead, bucketing a wildfire on a slope near Mount Robson.
But we never imagined this.
Sitting in our family van on Monday night, gridlocked in evacuee traffic a block from my home, I assured my eight-year-old daughter we’d be back to Jasper to feed her fish. They’ll be ok for a few days, I said. Don’t be scared.
It’s hard to know how much to share with kids. You want to protect them. But what happens when they see you trying to console your friend who’s wondering where our students will go to school, where her husband’s going to work, what we’re going to do…
It’ll be ok, honey, we have each other.
It sounds hollow, when you type it out. Fake. Like something they’d say in a movie.
But it’s not a movie.
Walking in a daze around the Yellowhead RV Park just outside of the town of Valemount, B.C., I wave to Jasperites I haven’t seen all summer. They’re all wearing the same expressions: shock. Disbelief. Devastation. By now, we’ve all seen the images—sent through by friends who are first responders and emergency officials and dispatchers and CN workers—of blackened skies, of ten-storey high flames, of houses on fire. We were all holding out hope, but a picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.
Except we have none.
Parents hug each other while our kids play soccer in the campground. A box of fudgsicles gets passed around. We watch their happy, chocolate-covered faces, grateful to be momentarily distracted. We have to be strong for them now, we tell each other. We have to lead them—show them we’re going to be ok.
In Jasper, our role models are mountain people: climbers, trail blazers, adventurers—outfitters that blazed the trails which keep so many of us attached to our sense of place here.
I’ve got new role models now. When I consider how to talk to our kids about what’s next, I’ll think of the compassionate, honest leadership demonstrated by the first responders, incident commanders and community officials who made a heroic effort to fight an impossible battle. They did their level best. But Nature always wins.
The coming days will be full of uncertainty, but one thing remains consistent: the best way to get our kids to bed is by reading them a story. Tonight my son picked a book at random from the shelf in the room we’re staying in. New books are one benefit of staying with friends. The title is “The Thankful Book.” Twenty or so pages of things to be thankful for. Friends. Community. Hugs. Our health.
I need the book to sleep as much as he does.
Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
