New exhibit displays experiences of forest fire in La Ronge

“I did the photo voice because I thought it was a really great visual way to think about impacts and people’s experiences,” she said. “It’s a good way to share through visual pictures.”

She said it has been a very interesting way to connect with the emotional aspects of an event like a wildfire.

She was in La Ronge for a year and a half talking to people about their experiences but took four months to put the whole piece together.

“It was up in a gallery space in La Ronge for two months and then we decided to take it a little further,” she said. “The participants were quite happy with it, we got good feedback, and we thought we’d expand our scope.”

She hopes the main thing people take away from the exhibit is the range of experiences as well as what has been learned from the past.

“I think this is just a very nice chance to hear the range of stories from diverse communities in the north,” Walker explained.

Since she moved the exhibit from La Ronge to P.A. she’s not sure what’s next, but she will talk to the participants to see what they want to do.

The participants are all people she met in La Ronge who lived through the fires in some way. Whether volunteering, evacuating themselves from the community or protecting their homes from the fires.

She said the biggest challenge of making an exhibit such as this one is that it can be quite daunting to the participants but once they got started, they were excited about it.

Walker explained she talked to people who lost their cabins to the fire but there was also a mental and emotional impact.

“It’s not just losing the property that impacts people, it’s a whole range of things, so I think that’s another important thing that came out of this project,” Walker said.

The last major forest fire season in La Ronge was in 2015. Most had to evacuate their home but some stayed and volunteered.

40 different photographs are displayed at the John M. Cuelenaere Library. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

Robert Lessard was one of the participants in the project and has photographs on display. He has lived in La Ronge since 1978 and worked in forestry, so he could see the seriousness of the fire.

Being an avid cross-country skier and hiker, he went to the Don Allen trails to the summit and snapped a picture of the ski hut that was once there, which is one of the pictures displayed.

He said he was affected directly by the fire.

“Being with fires and forestry I knew I was in an over mature area and I’ve taken precautions,” he said. “Every year I’d have big bonfires and we have sprinklers set up on our new home, but it was the way we were treated with the evacuation that upset me.”

He said he was upset he was unable to stay back to protect his home but left it in the care of friends. Lessard didn’t lose his home during the fire and went to stay with family in Pike Lake when evacuated.

“Northern air operations came in and did some firebombing in the area that definitely saved it as well,” he recalls.

–

Ian.gustafson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @iangustafson12

by Ian Gustafson

New exhibit displays experiences of forest fire in La Ronge

What's Trending