Fort McMurray Archives

What's Hot September 28, 2016

Woman of the Week: Erin O’Neill

It’s been about five months since the city of Fort McMurray was consumed by flame and smoke. On May 3, over 80,000 people were forced to flee their homes. Television newscasts showed the wildfire quite literally jumping roads, inching closer and closer to the residential parts of the wooded region in Alberta. Luckily, there were no deaths.

Fort McMurray seems to be slowly healing, but there are still some households that are inhabitable. But, the recovery plan — which focuses on building the community back up — is in good hands.

Erin O’Neill was in Red Deer when she heard about the fire, accepting her new role as president elect of the Alberta Professional Planners Institute. She couldn’t go home and couldn’t get any information. “I was following twitter. I watched the news like everyone else,” she said. “I remember going to sleep thinking I would wake up and not have anything.”

Then she got a phone call on the Saturday afternoon asking her to come back to Fort McMurray. She jumped on a city bus from Edmonton into the city. “I had no idea where I was staying, didn’t know what my job was. I got there and they said ‘you are going to be the planning chief of re-entry’.”

Her official position, Chief of Planning for the Regional Emergency Operations Center, meant she was in charge of all re-entry procedures — creating a Recovery Task Force, getting critical businesses like pharmacies and grocery stores up and running, and eventually helping people back into their homes.

“You know when you go on vacation? You turn out your lights and gas. We did everything for the whole city and then had to turn it back on again,” she said. Then, the city had to restock all of their merchandise and get businesses running again, a difficult feat considering smoke had gotten into everything.

O’Neill showed up at 4:30 in the morning on June 1, the first day of re-entry, expecting everything to go wrong. But, according to her, it was almost anti-climactic.

“It was the smoothest day,” she said. “I was like, ‘this is it?’

When speaking with O’Neill over the phone, it was obvious why she was chosen for this important role. She speaks with authority and sincerity — and genuinely cares for her community. She also happens to be incredibly kind-hearted and humble about her role in the successful re-entry of Fort McMurray.

O’Neill went to school with the intent of becoming a teacher, but in her third year of university she decided it just wasn’t for her. Instead, she went into planning and development. “I think it’s that you can see a piece of land and see it develop and help the people,” she said. “You are protecting the public interest and then you are making a difference. You can see that end result.”

After working in Ottawa processing standard permits, she made the bold decision to move to Fort McMurray. This was nine years ago.

Before she was appointed her emergency chief of planning role, O’Neill was Manager of Land Acquisition and Issues Management, or rather the person who manages land use and real estate interests for Fort McMurray, acting as broker between developers and the province. Now that most of the city’s residents are back in their homes, O’Neill is excited to expand her role, transitioning to handle three sections of the recovery plan following the fire — rebuild, mitigate, and the economy. Essentially, she is creating a legacy for the city, figuring out how to move forward after such a debilitating natural disaster.

It’s quite the portfolio, but it’s obvious O’Neill is more than capable.

Living May 23, 2016

Nature’s roar: the crisis of climate refugees

The reality of climate change refugees once seemed like a distant threat that plagued small villages in far-away places, but with the recent wild fires that forced 80,000 people to flee Fort McMurray, the dangers of climate change have arrived at our front doors.

Climate change is having a variety of effects on the planet, including floods, wild fires, droughts and extreme storms. It has become a forefront topic of discussion because of the dangers this environmental phenomenon poses for civilization. Quite literally, nature is at war with us. Though discussion surrounding the reasons and potential effects of climate change are increasingly relevant, more of an emphasis is necessary surrounding climate refugees.

A climate refugee, as defined by the Global Governance Project 2012, is an “environmental migrant forced to move due to sudden or gradual alterations in the natural environment related to at least one of three impacts of climate change; sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and drought and water scarcity.” The impacts of climate change are causing refugees in the present, and it will only get worse if current temperatures continue to rise. The World Bank estimates that by 2050, 1.3 billion people will be at risk because of climate change related disasters.

In 2015 and 2016 alone, there were 19 million people displaced due to climate change. There was a severe migrant crisis in Syria influenced by war and drought, an earthquake in Nepal followed by an avalanche at Mt. Everest, drought in Ethiopia, floods in South Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma and Mozambique, and a heat wave in Southern India. Wild fires plagued the west last summer and earlier in May 2016, forced the entire city of Fort McMurray to evacuate.

Many climate refugees try to remain in their own country, and in the case of the residents of Fort McMurray, Canada has enough resources to help its displaced people. In other countries though, climate-induced disasters can be catastrophic because there is a lack of assets available to help distressed populations. Arguably, the Syrian crisis is the most prevalent example to date of the fate that awaits climate refugees. When a country is plagued with drought, a lack of resources, and an unaccommodating government, it is a recipe for war. The mass migration of Syrians to safer northern countries represents the beginning of a series of massive moves from southern regions to colder, northern climates.

A report on the extreme temperatures in the Middle East and North Africa was released in April 2016 that shows how the projected two-degree rise as a result of climate change by 2050 may actually be higher in the Middle East. With the current increase in temperature in the region, which includes 29 countries, the average summer temperature may rise to 50 degrees by 2050 and will become unliveable. If this occurs, people will be forced to move to other regions in the world, and compete for water and food resources. A strain on natural resources and the global economy will most likely follow.

We need to change. All of us are responsible to our planet, and we are looking at a global shift so extreme it may lead to our own extinction. Even as an environmentalist, I am at fault as well. Seeing various Facebook posts, tweets, and articles pop up that blame the oil industry for the fires in Fort McMurray, it isn’t justified. We all use the products that these natural companies produce whether or not we want to admit it. Making the world miners vs. environmentalists, west vs. east, and rich vs. poor is not going to help curb climate change. The blame game is a waste of time.

Instead, we need legislation to protect climate refugees. We need mandatory, international rights that ban countries from building fences to keep people out, and prevent people from being forced to walk from border to border with nowhere to go. On a global level, climate contracts like the 2015 Paris Agreement needs to address migrants as a central concern, instead of simply assigning a task force to the “discuss the issue”. Most importantly, we need to drop the us vs. them philosophy and unite together the way Canadians recently did in the Fort McMurray crisis.

On another level, we need to change our focus on resource consumption. Food, water, and natural resources need to be considered as valuable assets that should be shared by all, rather than limitless consumer goods that are solely at the disposable of the rich. If mass climate-caused immigration is imminent, we need to prepare and provide everyone with their equal share. Renewable resources need to be taken seriously, and not just used as dinner table talk for saavy environmental science majors.

Looking at the fire destroying a city in my home province of Alberta, it becomes clear. Nature is angry and she’s fighting back. As people, we are so consumed with arguing between each other that we can’t even hear nature’s roar. The question then becomes: when do we shut up and listen?

Movie Reviews May 6, 2016

“Koneline” documentary teaches non-judgment of northern Canada

In light of the recent wild fires in Fort McMurray, it is a good time to witness Koneline: our land beautiful, a documentary that sheds light on the lifestyle of northerners, and aims to understand rather than judge people who live in the world of oil and mining. The film is being shown in the Hot Doc’s festival on Saturday, May 7 at 3:15 p.m in the Hart House Theatre and is worth watching. As an environmentalist and western Canadian, it shook me to my core.

Koneline, directed by Canadian Nettie Wild, is a documentary about Northern B.C and the confluence of themes that interplay into the life and work of mines, the traditions of the Tahltan First Nations, and the life of the hunter. Wild shows the audience life in northern Canada, and purposefully refrains from taking a specific stance between the polarized opinions of miners and political activists.

Driller at sunset. Photo provided by Koneline.

“The north is a foreign land to many people in the south. If people can experience the land in a visceral way, it may mean they read the news in a different way,” said Wild. “There is dogmatic rhetoric flying from all sides. I thought I could bring art. I thought if I could bring a non-judgmental camera, I might be surprised and surprise the audience too. I think people are weary of being told what to think.”

Koneline films multiple perspectives of the miners who work the land, the Tahltan First Nations whose people are divided between working in the mine and protesting it, and experienced hunters who guide expeditions for tourists. Showing various peoples’ connections to the land could easily become an overwhelming experience for the viewer, but Wild uses breathtaking cinematic shots and aerial views that allow the audience to digest the various perspectives of life in the northern part of B.C before leading into the next scene.

Oscar Dennis, member of the Tahltan First Nations. Provided by Koneline.

Wild focuses on three main points of view in the film. The First Nations are a key player in Northern B.C and the audience meets Oscar Dennis, a member of the Tahltan who is trying to preserve the language and culture of his people. Some members of the Tahltan are actively fighting the development of the mines and they set up a barricade at the Red Chris mine during the course of filming to protest a tailings pond that was due to be built. Other Tahltan members work the mines so they can afford to feed their families. Hunters are also a key player in the film. It features Heidi Guntfrucht, one of the only female hunting guides in Canada, who is worried about the effect of the mines of wildlife migration in the area. The diamond miners also talk about their love of nature as a reason for working up north.

Wild began the project in 2012, and shot the footage for a year in 2014. During the course of her research and shooting, Wild began to see a common thread between all of her various film subjects. “I was moved,” said Wild. “We are all carrying luggage. We have onion layers and assumptions building up. All of those people have a real love of the land. There is a shared commonality.”

The name, Koneline, is a Tahltan word that has a two-fold meaning. In the Tahltan language, the pronoun “K” simultaneously means “I” and “the land” as one entity. Koneline itself means is beautiful. Therefore, the word means “I am beautiful” and “the land is beautiful” at the same time, demonstrating the deep connection this First Nations people hold to the land as a part of their individual identity.

The cinematography often shows the power lines that have been built in Northern B.C as contrasted to the vast wilderness in the array of aerial shots in Koneline. Wild attempts to show both the man-made technology and nature as essential parts of the northern landscape in her documentary. “There is a real elegance of engineering. It is an insane technological feat. All of the contradictions are there. There are these stark technological structures in the middle of pristine wilderness but they are also beautiful and surreal,” said Wild.

Koneline is a piece of cinematic art that pushes boundaries on what we perceive as compared to what we know. As an environmentalist, I can honestly say that this documentary affected me deeply by showing the value of considering all points of view rather than taking a specific stance that inadvertently narrows my judgment. The film will redefine your definition of being an environmentalist and is worth seeing at Hot Doc’s this year. With Fort McMurray in mind, refraining from judgment and being empathetic to the northern way of life may open your mind in a way you didn’t quite expect.

“We’re in a dangerous place when we have that polarized rhetoric. It is East vs. West and South vs. North. Everyone else is talking about it and the people of the north are living it. It is their jobs that are being won or lost, they are paying the premium on the horrible [packaged] food and their land that is being changed,” said Wild. “Canada is the north and we are defined by it. Let’s see what kind of assumptions we have and question them. We need to step back and say, isn’t that interesting. What does being non-judgmental look and sound like? Art can articulate that in a different way. You can feel that in your gut.”