Chiefs who were involved in the largest fire evacuation in Saskatchewan’s history say they can relate to what Fort McMurray’s people are going through.
On Monday, Montreal Lake Cree Nation (MLCN) and Lac La Ronge Indian Band’s chiefs headed to Prince Albert’s Red Cross office to donate $5,000 each on behalf of their band membership.
It was an easy choice for Chief Edward Henderson and Chief Tammy Cook-Searson to offer the assistance. The past week has brought back emotional memories of the 13,000 people forced to evacuate their northern Saskatchewan homes last summer as the unstoppable force of wildfires threatened their communities.
At that time, MLCN had less than an hour’s notice before the wildfire was threatening the entire community. As the flames forced themselves closer to the community, the wildlife was fleeing just as quickly as humans, said Chief Edward Henderson. He recalled seeing rabbits hopping alongside people.
In times of crisis like that, a person realizes nothing matters more than a person’s life, he said.
“Our members talked about, we know how Fort Mac feels, that you only get less than an hour to get out of the community and take what you can but when the fire’s coming you’ve got to get out. A lot of that material stuff can be replaced but lives can’t be,” he said.
Conversations with his membership in recent days have revolved around the sense of awe people are feeling over just how many people had to leave their homes behind in such a hurry.
MLCN lost nine structures in the fire, and is only just now recovering from that damage, Henderson said.
“Our community was saying, ‘you feel bad for Fort Mac, I think the count was over 1,600 structures and homes. A lot of our people felt that, felt the pain, felt the sorrow for that community,” he said.
For LLRIB and MLCN, the Red Cross donation is a way to return the kindness that was shown to them in a time of need, Cook-Searson said.
“It felt so nice to have that support at that time and we felt that we wanted to give back to the Red Cross,” she said.
Henderson agreed.
“The outpouring that we got when we evacuated, our 1,400 members plus, was so touching that so many people opened their homes, opened their communities,” he said.
“When you get 13,000 people from northern Saskatchewan coming in, that’s nothing compared to what Fort Mac’s going through where 80,000 people are being evacuated.”
Despite the completely different scope of damage done, he did have a message for the people of Fort McMurray.
“A lot of people are talking about ‘I don’t know what Fort Mac’s going to go through because it’s only been a year for us and we’re not completely back to 100 per cent.’ And I think Fort Mac’s rebuilding is going to take a lot of rebuilding and also the community just coming back together and realizing that the homes they are going to be going home to are not going to be the same,” he said.
In the case of Montreal Lake, Henderson said he warned his people that the community they were coming back to isn’t the one they knew before.
There are lessons to be learned from a crisis like this, Cook-Searson said.
For her, the standout was how important it is to have equipment and to properly recognize those – especially northerners – with wildfire training.