Images are based on a digital reworking of selected originals from the Boreal Smouldering Series,2016 by Allan Harding MacKay
What our grief for Jasper tells us about our love for the natural world
As Jasper wildfires make international headlines, our awe for the storied place transcends political parties, policies and posturing
Article: Emma Gilchrist THE NARWHAL
EXCERPT from article
As Edward Struzik, author of Dark days at noon: The future of fire, writes for The Conversation: “Fire has no ideology or preferences; it will always be quite simply a chemical reaction, a propulsive oxidation of hydrocarbons shaped by terrain, weather, climate and the combustible material around it. We must learn to live with fire, and find ways of containing it for fire will never learn to live with us.”
Struzik says the devastation in Jasper reinforces just how much we need a national wildfire strategy to bring together all levels of governance to map out a blueprint for how to better predict, prevent, mitigate and manage fires, and how to provide small communities with the resources they need to make them more resilient.
The true solutions aren’t sexy and don’t make for great soundbites. They’re multi-faceted, and require coordination and funding. And even with our best efforts, we are still going to live with the reality that many Canadian communities are situated amidst vast forests, in a warming world more prone to drought, heatwaves and fire. So uncertainty around fires is going to be part of our reality moving forward, like it or not.
Here’s what we do know: for every story like Jasper that captures international headlines, there are thousands more hectares of forest being burned to the ground, dozens more communities — many of them Indigenous — threatened by flames, millions of animals with no evacuation centres to run to and hundreds more families driven from their homes.
Every place being burnt to the ground holds emotional resonance for the people who live there, just as Jasper has that power to connect deeply with people from around the world. Let’s remember that as we grieve for Jasper.
