In times of crisis, we often turn to our leaders, looking for someone to help explain the unexplainable. Sometimes we seek strength. Sometimes we seek resolve. But sometimes, we just want our leaders to feel the way we’re feeling.
When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stepped to the microphone on Thursday morning to give a briefing on the devastating wildfires that have left parts of the beloved Jasper townsite in ruin, she was almost brought to tears. As her voice wavered, nearly overcome with emotion, many understood. The first images and videos to emerge of the ash-covered homes, businesses and vehicles reduced to rubble after the fire raced into the historic mountain town were circulating on social media. It was shocking.
As The Globe’s Kelly Cryderman says in her column: “It’s the place where people learned to ski, got engaged, or first camped. It’s where you can tough out the backcountry Skyline Trail, or stay in a hotel with window views of wild elk.”
If you are one of the millions of people from all over the world who first experienced the awe of the mountains in Jasper National Park, at least a part of you felt how Smith was feeling. There’s an emotional connection to the place.
Of course, there is still likely to be a reckoning (or at least an accounting) of what happened this week. How did a fire, noticed just hours earlier on Monday evening, force 25,000 residents and visitors to stream into British Columbia seeking refuge from what Parks Canada’s director of national fire management Pierre Martel called a “monster” of a fire? What happened with the Emergency Alert system on Monday that it initially warned people to evacuate because the fire would reach the town in five hours causing fear and unhelpful panic among some? Are there enough resources to fight the hundreds of wildfires that ignite now like clockwork every summer? Is Parks Canada doing a good enough job managing the forests? Is Alberta ready to take climate change seriously yet?
A lot of these questions will be answered in time, but stories like wildfires are essentially about the people.
Like Jeff Morris, who tearfully told The Globe’s Nancy Macdonald about how he loaded up a bus with residents of the local seniors home on Monday night to help them make their escape to Valemount, B.C.
Or Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland, who on Thursday spoke of his “profound sorrow” over what had happened to his town.
Justyna Van Poucke-Choquette, Nikola Hausen and Faith Warwaruk, all of whom live and work in Jasper, explained to our Alanna Smith about how sad they are about the town but are also now wondering whether they will have jobs to return to.
And Jim Campbell and Shawn Cornett, who explained to The Globe’s Carrie Tait how they were awakened in the middle of the night by other backcountry hikers who had received the warning that they had to get out immediately.
More dramatic stories and images will emerge in the coming days about a towering fire, hundreds of metres tall, that moved at an astounding pace and shocked even the most experienced firefighters. And the political sniping that has already begun about who should bear the responsibility for what happened will certainly take up a lot of oxygen.
But people shouldn’t lose sight of those most deeply affected by the disaster like Annelies Lagger, who has owned and lived in the Austrian Haven bed and breakfast for more than three decades, and still doesn’t know the fate of her homestead.
“Now, it’s probably gone,” Lagger, who fled with only her cats and dog, told The Globe’s Fatima Raza. “I’m 82 years old. I don’t think I will survive much longer. My home was like my soul, my heart. It was everything.”
This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.