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In the fall of 2018, Jane Lee and her brother Alan Burke made a sombre boat trip up the Key River to see what could be salvaged from their island cottage on northern Ontario’s Georgian Bay.
They came back with empty containers.
Their cottage was one of six destroyed five years ago by a wildfire known as Parry Sound 33, that forced the evacuation of 50 boat-in camps, as well as 175 people from the nearby Henvey Inlet First Nation.
They decided to rebuild on the rocky island that’s been in their family since 1962. There is now a more modest cabin and Lee says they are planting trees bred to thrive on bare rock, while working with scientists to regenerate soil.
“We still feel we want to be there. It’s hard to make sense of why when we lost everything. It’s still part of the family,” she said.
“The little cabin we have now is situated so our back is to the damage. We’re looking ahead.”
This summer, Lee says it’s been hard to not think about wildfires, given the devastation in western Canada and elsewhere around the world.
“The pictures in Yellowknife very much put our place into perspective. Ours was a recreational property and not a place of business, not a place to raise children,” she said.
Chris Dawson has owned the Key Harbour Lodge where the river meets Georgian Bay for 18 years and housed provincial firefighters during the summer of 2018.
He says his business has bounced back after the fire and is surprised to see the landscape has as well.
“There’s a bunch of small trees and ferns and everything else, so the green is starting to come back to the area,” said Dawson.
“So, it’s a nice surprise, but all the dead trees still standing remind you of exactly what happened and how rough it was.”
But he says on some of the islands it’s easier to still see signs of the fire and some of the people who lost camps decided to walk away.
“It makes it tough to justify spending the money to rebuild,” said Dawson.
Investigators with the Ministry of Natural Resources determined that the Key River fire was started by a backfiring ATV being operated by crews building the Henvey Inlet wind farm, now the largest in Ontario.
But the ministry decided not to lay charges or sue the company for costs.
Lee’s brother Alan Burke filed freedom of information requests to find out more about the ministry’s investigation, but was denied.
“Those emotions kind of recede as time passes, but yeah, it’s frustrating that we’ve never really had an accurate explanation of what went on and more than that, if there is on there, they won’t let us see it,” he said.
In a statement, the ministry said it completed an “extensive investigation” which included a “forensic fire expert” and “no provincial offence under the Forest Fires Prevention Act was found to have been committed.”
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