Returning to ‘a pile of ashes’
60 Paddle Prairie residents displaced
A miniature foosball table sits where a balcony once stood at the front of a property near the northern border of the fire-ravaged Paddle Prairie Metis Settlement. In the same lot an ATV and a family vehicle stand untouched near an unidentifiable car and destroyed off-road vehicle.
Wilma Cardinal has been volunteering in the community, cooking for emergency crews. Wednesday was the first time she saw that lot, where her sister-in-law’s three-bedroom home once stood, with her own eyes.
“When we got the news, we prayed and prayed. When we heard initially it was coming into Paddle, all we could do was pray,” said Cardinal as she surveyed the pile of burned wood with a charred stove sitting in the middle of the home’s former foundation.
“They just redid their kitchens, re-did their floors, re-did their cupboards.”
Fifteen homes on the outskirts of the community, located approximately 700 kilometres north of Edmonton on Highway 35, were destroyed by the Chuckegg Creek wildfire last month. Residents will return home for the first time in more than three weeks Thursday, as the evacuation order for the settlement is lifted.
Dry conditions and heavy winds saw the fire rapidly spread to the middle of the community on May 29 from outside the settlement. Community officials said the fire spread almost 20 kilometres in one day.
Cardinal said trained residents who stayed behind to assist with protecting the community had less than one hour to evacuate. Once they went south, she said they ended up between the Manning wildfire and the Chuckegg.
“We had family and friends that were there on the highway for four hours, they couldn’t go forward, they couldn’t come back,” said Cardinal. “Seeing the devastation in their eyes and in their voices cause there was nothing they could do, knowing we could very well lose everything.”
An estimated 60 people, in a community with a population of approximately 700, now won’t have a home to return to.
“They’re coming home to a pile of ashes,” said the settlement’s chairman, Greg Calliou. “When they come home, they’re gonna cry. Most people that travelled through here have cried. “We’ve lost everything.” Homes on the settlement, where there is no active fire department, are uninsured, leaving displaced families on the hook for any rebuilding costs. Calliou said he’s asking the provincial government to provide emergency housing support.
“If there’s any help, it’s gonna be slow coming,” he predicted.
The province did not respond to requests for comments as of press time.
A relief concert, titled Bring the Rain, is scheduled for later this month in Grande Prairie to help raise funds to rebuild the homes.
Moving forward, Calliou said the community will face additional challenges of lost hunting grounds and valuable timber, in addition to the destroyed homes.
Calliou said more than 50 per cent of the settlement’s 1,700 kilometres of boreal forest has been destroyed.
“It destroyed our culture, our lifestyle. No beaver, no water, no moose, no ducks, no hunting, no trapping. We will not recover from that in 15, 20 years. It will not be in my lifetime,” said Calliou.
A number of communities near Paddle Prairie face their own battles with the Chuckegg Wildfire. La Crete and nearby Dene Tha’ First Nation communities are under mandatory evacuation orders.
High Level, 70 kilometres north of Paddle Prairie, is under an evacuation notice preparing residents to leave two weeks after they were allowed to return home from their own recent displacement.
“The northern area is suffering,” said Cardinal, as she fought back tears near her family’s lost home.
“It’s years of memory we’ll never get back.”