After a wildfire, how do you rebuild your life? Stories from the heart of Jasper

October 31, 2024 Canuck

Jasper is one of Canada’s oldest and most iconic national parks, with its picturesque setting in the rocky mountains of Alberta.

This summer, it earned new notoriety, as one of the growing number of Canadian communities ravaged by wildfire.

At the height of the mountain park’s tourist season, more than 20,000 people fled Jasper National Park, after an evacuation order on July 22.

Days later the fire reached the town, taking a third of the structures in the Municipality of Jasper, including 800 homes.

Rebuilding after the wildfire will take years, and parts of the scenic landscape will take decades to regrow. The tragedy also took the life of Morgan Kitchen, a 24-year-old firefighter from Calgary who was struck by a falling tree.

Now or Never53:52After a wildfire, how do you rebuild your life? Stories from the heart of Jasper

Three months after the fire burned more than 32,500 hectares, locals are finding a way to rebuild their lives next to the charred remains of what they lost.

As this fire season comes to an end and the tourist town prepares for winter, Now or Never meets Jasperites as they navigate grief and new beginnings together.

Tour guide Joe Urie shows Trevor and Ify the view from Old Fort Point, a hill top hike outside the town of Jasper. — Tour guide Joe Urie brings Trevor and Ify on a hike up Old Fort Point, overlooking the widfire’s path around the town of Jasper. (Ariel Fournier/CBC)

Joe Urie, a Métis tour guide and longtime local, brings hosts Ify Chiwetelu and Trevor Dineen up Old Fort Point, for an overlook view of what Jasper looks like today. Urie was one of the first to spot the wildfire’s northern fire while out on a tour with tourists.

Before that day, many warned Jasper was vulnerable to a wildfire. For the last eight years, he had a sign by his front door that read, “When the fire hits, grab the kids, the dogs, the hardware box, and the photos.” In the aftermath, he said he still believes in the regenerative power of fire, and what comes next.

Tour guide Joe Urie shows Ify and Trevor his new wildfire tattoo on his arm. — Tour guide Joe Urie shows Ify and Trevor the tattoo he got after the Jasper wildfire, as a reminder of the regenerative power of forest fires. (Ariel Fournier/CBC)

Lorraine Stanko has been searching through the debris of her friends’ and neighbours’ homes, trying to find valuables that weren’t destroyed by the wildfire.

She hopes to bring them, and herself, closure, after her own home in town burned down.

Lorraine Stanko poins to what remains of her burned out home — Lorraine Stanko gives a tour of her burned out home, where she sifted through the rubble to find what could be salvaged along with a group of volunteers. (Ify Chiwetelu/CBC)

Blocks away from where Stanko’s house once stood, Sviatoslav Rud and Nina Egorova‘s rented home is still standing, but it is still uninhabitable due to smoke damage. They are sleeping in a borrowed RV in front of their house even as the temperatures dip amid a housing shortage in town, that’s worsened since the fire.

Sviatoslav Rud and Nina Egorova stand in front of the trailer they live out of in Jasper. — Sviatoslav Rud and Nina Egorova are living out of an RV while their rented home is being repaired from smoke damage. (Ariel Fournier/CBC)

Firefighter Kim Stark battled the blaze in town as her own house burned to the ground. Now she is teaching her three young children about what home really means. And she is learning from her children how to navigate grief, and accept that the “naughty” fire didn’t know any better.

Now or Never joins locals as they grab a plate at the town’s community dinner, a 20-year-old tradition in Jasper, that has new meaning and urgency. The town first started offering free dinners for ski hill workers during a slow ski season. After the snow came, and things picked up, the dinners kept happening and it became a night for the whole town to come together.

Volunteers at the Jasper community dinner serve food to locals. — Volunteers at the Jasper community dinner served free meals to 500 locals at the first gathering this season. (Ariel Fournier/CBC)

This meal marks the first one of the season.

The gatherings typically start in January, but it started early this year, after the local legion began offering free dinners for locals in the aftermath of the fire, and the municipality was inspired to bring back the event early.

Stephen Nelson has been living in a Hinton hotel for the past three months since his seniors’ lodge burned down. After 16 years in Jasper with no stable home, he moved into the lodge 11 days before the evacuation order. Now he is preparing to leave Jasper for good — “the love of his life,” that won’t seem to let him stay.