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Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
Imagine a wildfire is less than 15 kilometres from your home. You have only a few hours to pack whatever possessions you can carry or drive out with. What would you choose to save?
For some reason, I had often imagined this scenario. Perhaps because I had friends in Fort McMurray, Alta., who fled the wildfires of 2016, perhaps because fire had almost reached us in Yellowknife in 2014, this seemed like a possibility. I had to be prepared.
Then, on Aug. 16, 2023, the possibility became real. After weeks of refusing to even discuss mass evacuation owing to surrounding fires, the mayor of Yellowknife announced the decision: citizens had to get out. They gave us a day and a half to go, but most people weren’t waiting that long. My daughter and I chose to leave that night – with the fires, smoke and uncertain conditions along just one southbound lane of highway winding more than 700 kilometres to the Alberta border, we were afraid to stay any longer.
I had started sorting the piles of memorabilia earlier in the day, thinking we might only move across town to stay with a friend further from the flames. Either way, I was weighing the value of every precious piece of paper, card, letter and photograph. I just couldn’t conceive of leaving any of it to burn.
There I was, rereading Christmas cards, thank you notes and my 50th and 60th birthday cards, crying and laughing all over again, putting one after the other in the “Yes” pile. Photographs I hadn’t looked at for years or had forgotten about altogether were too precious to leave behind. Suddenly it all seemed so terribly important.
Which photo albums to bring? I saved the one of our trip to China to adopt my daughter and the album of her first year in Yellowknife. The adoption documents, yes. The little padded suit she was wearing when she was first put into my arms: absolutely. Her baptism candle and First Communion workbook were ditched at the last minute, along with my university diplomas.
I packed a small duck decoy that my mother had acquired and loved, and the photograph of my father making a putt in his vintage plus fours. Oh wait, my daughter with her first fish – that picture had to come! And the one of my sisters and I on a beach in Hamilton and sepia-toned portraits of ancestors were wrapped up, frames and all.
If I could have taken the art off the walls I would have. Every single belonging tells a story and has meaning. I know some people say that these are just things, but to me, they are the physical embodiment of memories. They are my life. It’s almost like I don’t trust my own memory; I need proof. That’s what I was stuffing into the Ford Focus hatchback that night.
I remember a conversation with an elder from Colville Lake, NWT, whose log home burned to the ground. I sent money and sympathy, saying I couldn’t imagine losing my home, it would be like losing half of myself. All she said was, “It was just a house. The land is where our stories are.”
For my family, our stuff is our story. The silver fish server that came from my maternal grandmother’s childhood home, Nana’s Royal Crown Derby, the Murano glass bowl with penguins on it that Uncle Paul brought back from Venice … these are part of our lineage. I was raised to care for things so they will last. So they can be passed down.
All of this was thrumming through my head as we loaded the car, leaving only a tiny spot for the dog.
I had a growing feeling of unfinished business as we crawled along the highway, bumper to bumper, that night. I started rethinking my decisions and mourning what I’d left. Regret gnawed at me all the way to Edmonton.
Why did I decide to leave all my journals? Why did I bring my sealskin mitts and not my box of writing? What was I thinking when I decided enough was enough and left some of the most important parts of myself behind? I pictured it all in ashes.
Since that night, I’ve talked to other evacuees. Someone told me she only brought 12 photographs. “Deciding which ones must have been agony,” I said, remembering my own sorting. No, she said, it was easy and she felt completely at peace about it. For another family, jerry cans of gas, camping gear and NWT craft beer were top of mind.
We Yellowknifers were among the lucky ones. Three weeks later we drove our stuff back home again into a city untouched by fire. Our fridge was still humming, crumbs still on the kitchen counter, everything exactly as we had left it.
I know you can’t take it with you when you finally leave this world. My descendants might not even care about the cards and photographs I saved. But last summer’s evacuation convinced me I would do it all again. Hopefully, I’ll have a bigger car.
I’ll start the process of discernment at the first whiff of smoke. And next time, I’ll bring the journals.
Catherine Pigott lives in Yellowknife.