By: Kerry Ding

After weeks of dry weather, many fires started in Canada in July. In Quebec, violent wildfires decimated the dry spruce forests in the area. Thousands of indigenous Canadians had to escape their small communities to survive. Native American people usually live in small groups and villages. They have had nearly no protection against fires because, unlike the big cities of Southern Canada, they had no firefighters. Their homes were also made mainly out of wood and other flammable materials. You would think they could escape, but it would be much harder than you think it would be partially due to the roadways.

The Billy Diamond Highway, connecting many tribes to big cities, was filled with desperate people wanting to escape the horrors of burning forests. However, the highway was already affected by the burning forests nearby. Smoke flooded into the highway causing it to be very hard to see. Eventually, the Billy Diamond Highway and nearby roads were closed, which stranded many communities of indigenous people.

However, some still managed to escape despite the highway’s condition. “I honestly wasn’t sure we’d make it out,” said Joshua Iserhoff, 45, a member of the Cree nation of Nemaska. He had to return to his community to save his wife and children. He had described his escape to be a “traumatic experience.”

In the past month about 1000 separate wildfires left a burned area the size of New York State, and displaced around 25,000 indigenous people in Canada. This mass burning of forested land made the lives of the Natives even harder as their main way of getting food has been hunting in the forests. These fires are fierce and can easily devastate the small number of buildings that the Native American communities have.

Although the Canadian Government has made attempts to stop the wildfires, their attempts so far have merely slowed the expansion of the fires. However, they have also created programs to compensate the affected Native Americans.

Many of the Native Americans had to escape multiple times because they believed the fires nearby were finished burning and returned to their homes. But sometimes the fires came back to the region, and the Natives were forced to flee again. However, the burning didn’t just affect Natives. Many things belonging to the Canadian government were burnt. For example, tourist centers in Canada were also wiped out. The burning forests weren’t just affecting Canada either as the wildfires affected the United States, too. Anyone living in or near New York was subjected to terrible air quality for many days in late May and early June 2023. The wildfires have been damaging to not only Canada and the U.S. but they have also clearly devastated the usually unnoticed Native tribes in the area.

Sources:

Firefighter carries Brockton family tradition to fire lines in Quebec

Former Cree Grand Chief Billy Diamond honoured in renaming of key northern Quebec highway | CBC News

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/cree-fires-emergency-closures-convoys-1.6903739

Canada Is Ravaged by Fire. No One Has Paid More Dearly Than Indigenous People.

The Government of Canada is supporting Canadians through the 2023 Wildfire Season – Update

Smoky week ahead from wildfires in Canada is expected to lead to more alert warnings for the Northeast | CNN.