‘Shaken to the core’: Lac du Bonnet evacuees return to find rubble for homes after wildfire

Remnants of a home on Wendigo Road in Lac du Bonnet, Man.

Wildfire evacuees in Lac du Bonnet, Man. are coming to terms with a new reality. The community they left behind just over a week ago is now unrecognizable.

Liane Ross-Martin lost her cabin on Wendigo Road in the wildfire.

“Devastation,” said Ross-Martin. “I have said that word and typed it so many times in this last week. We are devastated as a community, as property owners.”

She saw what’s left of her property for the first time since evacuation orders were put in place in the wake of an out-of-control wildfire early last week.

Ross-Martin and her family have been on Wendigo Road for six decades. Her parents started camping in the area in 1965 and built their first cabin in 1967.

“From there, they moved to the lakefront area, right here in 1971, the year I was born,” she said. “My husband and myself built brand-new in 2019.”

She says she has made so many memories over the years with family and friends.

“The lake has always healed us,” she said. “The tubing, swimming, the friendships that our neighbours have brought forward into our lives,”

To say Ross-Martin is emotional is an understatement.

“We raised our child out here,” she said. “He was out here digging through the rubble with us today. His memories are as much as mine are.”

“I don’t think you ever expect to see something like this, and it has shaken us to the core for certain.”

The once vibrant neighbourhood has turned to a barren wasteland, with several homes and cottages lost in the fire.

Forests now look like black columns, parked cars are now charred metal, and shingles, from what once served as protection on a home, has turned into dust.

Brad Wood, who is just a few doors down from Ross-Martin, was at a loss for words looking at what was once his cabin.

“It was a beautiful green forest. Just surreal to look at it right now,” he says. “In all honesty, how do you overcome this? This is such a loss.”

It is not just property that was lost on Wendigo Road. Sue and Richard Nowell died after they were trapped near their home in a wildfire last week. RCMP Manitoba said they were aware the couple were trapped in the fire, but emergency personnel could not reach them due to extreme conditions.

“Everybody is sharing the same grief,” he said. “It‘s heartfelt all the way from the top to the bottom.”

‘It‘s heartbreaking’: Residents call for better safety measures

As terrible of a tragedy it is, Wood said it could have been worse.

“We had no preparedness, no warning. No advanced notice,” he said. “There is no cell service here. That is detrimental to any form of safety or emergency evacuation program.”

Wood says neither RCMP nor emergency response members knocked on any of the doors in the neighbourhood telling residents to leave. He says he heard of the evacuation order from neighbours.

“I don’t understand it. We at one point at had cellular Wi-Fi, but at one point (Manitoba) Hydro killed the power to this area, so even if you were somewhere on this grid, you would’ve lost your power, Wi-Fi, cell phone boosters regardless, so if you were a bit further up, you wouldn’t have gotten any notification outside of a neighbour.”

Wood is calling for better planning and notification systems and hopes the Manitoba government would help residents like himself who lost everything.

“We’re hoping the province comes to us. We could sit at the table as stakeholders here and try to come up with a program. Maybe they will work with us. Maybe we could evolve something good from this,” he says.

Ross-Martin and her family also want to see better safety measures implemented.

“There are many things that have to change before we can feel comfortable rebuilding,” she said.

Ross-Martin says it‘s important at this time of grieving that everyone remains “Wendigo Road Strong,” adding, “If we don’t band together and have our voices be heard, there’s no point in any of this.”