Hold the gaze

It was the story of the summer.

Last year, in late July, Rocky Mountain communities and people across the world watched in disbelief as a massive wildfire razed parts of Jasper to the ground.

Residents of forested towns have always known that, when it comes to our biggest threat of natural disaster, wildfire is at the top of the list. Other communities have burned. For the last handful of years, Alberta and BC have been a mess of evacuations and wildfire emergencies. And smoky skies in summer have become ubiquitous.

Yet, until you experience it, the terrifying circumstances of a wildfire event, and the painful, drawn-out, disruptive conditions afterward, are pushed to the back of our collective minds.

We don’t want to go there.

But if we don’t learn from Jasper, not only will that community’s suffering be for naught, other Rockies towns run the risk of repeating the pattern. So, in this edition of Mountain Life Rocky Mountains, we go there.

We go other places, too: to gnarly Nordegg, where Laura Ollerenshaw digs into MTB trails unearthed from the ashes; to complicated K-Country, where agriculture and adventure overlap on the Eastern Slopes; and all the way to the Andes, where editor Erin Moroz cold-plunges into Peru.

But by holding the gaze of displaced Jasperites—perhaps the first climate change refugees some of us know personally—we seek to understand what resilience looks like. In the context of communities learning to be more resistant to fire, it’s simple but critical stuff: Build with fire-proof materials. Install a sprinkler. Check your insurance policy. Prep your evacuation kit. Clean your yard.

And then seize the friggin’ day. Because, just as we can no longer be cavalier about wildfire in a warming, drying climate, neither can we live under a blanket of fear. Wildfires are going to happen. But communities don’t have to burn.

So get on the lake, hit the trails, study the stars and load up the camper. (And venture up to Jasper! The town needs your support.)

Go forth this summer and take absolutely nothing for granted. – BC