‘It’s never going to be the same’: B.C. vacation community aims to rebuild after wildfire

The B.C. Wildfire Service has released new video of the wildfire fight near Boston Bar.

B.C. wildfire officials don’t yet know the extent of damage the fires burning near Boston Bar this week have caused to structures in the area, but the Blue Lake Resort community knows enough to know it will never be the same.

Eight campsites at the resort have been destroyed by the Ainslie Creek wildfire, part of the Brunswick complex that has burned more than 180 square kilometres in the Fraser Canyon area since July 2.

Several other sites have been damaged, according to Annika Loven and Kelsey Frost, two members of the tight-knit vacation community that includes roughly 40 leaseholders who come back year after year.

Though their campsites are only about 15 feet apart, Loven’s has been reduced to rubble, while Frost’s appears to have emerged unscathed.

“Annika’s place, it went from this beautiful little sanctuary to nothing,” said Frost, speaking to CTV News via Zoom on Saturday.

“Like, there’s nothing left. It’s flat. It’s gone.”

While described as “campsites,” the leasehold spaces at Blue Lake Resort generally have permanent structures built on them.

Loven said her parents built an outdoor kitchen, a gazebo, a bunkhouse and a shed on their site.

“That’s all been torn down by the fire,” she said.

Leaseholders have been getting their updates from Shayne Findlay, the owner of the resort, who watched remotely via surveillance cameras as the flames swept through on the night of July 7.

• Read more: ‘It was a hellstorm’: B.C. resort loses multiple buildings in growing wildfire

“Shayne’s been amazing,” said Frost. “He’s given us lots of updates throughout, as he’s able to.”

It’s unclear when Loven and Frost will be able to return to their properties. The Ainslie Creek wildfire remains out of control and an evacuation order remains in place.

Already, though, they’re thinking about next steps.

“My parents do want to rebuild,” Loven said. “They love, love, love being up there, so much.”

She described the resort as a “special” place, where all of the leaseholders are friends, and even the “randoms” who rent a campsite for a few days are included in group events.

Every Canada Day, the resort hosts a sports day, and neighbours routinely hold potlucks and parties for each other, according to Loven.

“It’s all organized by our community, who want to hang out and be with each other and spend time with each other,” she said. “I find that really touching.”

Frost agreed, noting that her son once called Blue Lake “the happiest place on Earth.”

“It is a beautiful, slower, easier pace of life up there,” she said.

Because of the nature of the properties—they’re second homes, leased rather than owned outright, and located in a forested area where the wildfire risk is significant—it’s difficult for many leaseholders at Blue Lake to get insurance.

Loven and Frost said most of the eight lessees whose campsites were destroyed were uninsured.

“The cost of having to rebuild is where my family’s kind of struggling and I think a lot of the other lessee families are struggling,” Loven said.

To help her neighbours rebuild, Frost has started an online fundraiser.

A separate GoFundMe page is raising money for Saeed Mansouri—the resort’s operations manager and only year-round resident—and his wife.

Frost said the scars on the landscape will remain even if the leaseholders are able to rebuild.

“It’s never going to be the same, but at least if we can remove the financial barrier for these people to rebuild, then maybe we can get it close?” she said.

For Loven, the loss is tragic, but the response to the tragedy has been inspiring.

“It’s awesome to see everybody, whether they’re a lessee or a random, volunteering in the comments to come up and help,” she said. “So I just also wanted to say thank you to everyone for supporting Shayne and Saeed and Steffi and all eight of us who we know have lost our sites at this point. It’s really wonderful and it’s very special to be a part of it.”