Forest fires a draw for two Tennessee tourists
Father and son say fishing trip to Hearne Lake Lodge made 'memorable' because of a wildfire in the area
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
He is not suggesting that the NWT use forest fires as a tourism marketing campaign, but an American tourist who came to the Yellowknife area last week for a fishing trip said it was the fires that made the vacation that much more memorable.
Robert Caudill of Tennessee was out on Hearne Lake last weekend as a huge forest fire burns behind him. Caudill and his dad Ed spent a week fishing on the lake despite the smoke and flames. Ed said the fire made the week more memorable. - photo courtesy of Edie Dul |
Ed Caudill and his son Robert Caudill are from Maryville, Tennessee. They arrived at the Hearne Lake Lodge, about 65 kilometres east of Yellowknife on July 5 for a week of fishing. They caught lots of fish, Ed said, but he added that the story they are telling their family and friends back home is less about the fish and more about the nearby forest fire. Yellowknifer reached him by phone back home in Tennessee on Monday morning.
"We've been North before but never to the NWT. We came in with the expectation of beautiful country, hopefully catching some big fish and having a week of leisure," Caudill said. "We got all of that, but my son and I agreed that in an odd way, the most outstanding part of the trip was the forest fire. We got to experience something we were never up close to before."
Caudill, who lives near the densely forested Great Smoky Mountains National Park, said they don't have the same climate down there as in the NWT. They do get the occasional forest fire, he said, but nothing like they saw last week.
"I was sorry to see this for the people who have to suffer the smoke all summer and it did interfere a little," he said. "But we were able to either go upwind or downwind, upstream or downstream so it didn't really interfere with our fishing at all."
Caudill said they could smell the smoke and see the huge plumes of smoke.
"The forest fire was almost like added excitement to the whole trip - a new experience that we never had before," Caudill said. "Now we have it enshrined in photographs. The fire was across the lake and I'm guessing it was a little less than a mile from us but we never felt in danger at all because the lake was between us and the fire," Caudill said.
"It was hard to see across the lake because it was blanketed in smoke and visibility was probably ... 1,000 yards at that point. The smoke didn't bother me that much that day but I felt a little raspy from it and my son - it irritated his throat a little more than me."
The smoke was thick enough that the Caudills could feel the particulates in the air as they headed by boat back to the lodge.
"My son actually wet a bandanna and wore it over his face," Caudill said.
They never saw any actual firefighters but they did see water bombers and helicopters, Caudill said.
"We're absolutely coming back. My son said it was the best vacation he'd ever been on."
It appears that the heavy smoke that settled over Yellowknife Sunday and Monday was from the Hearne Lake fire. The smoke Sunday was likely from the fire and the backburn operation on the Hearne Lake fire because the strong winds were from the east, said Mike Gravel, the territorial duty officer for Environment and Natural Resources (ENR). But he wasn't ruling out the possibility that the smoke from fires in Saskatchewan and Alberta had reached the city.
"On the weekend we did a burnout operation on the Hearne Lake fire and that was essentially to keep the fire from spreading north toward the Ingram Trail and Reid Lake. That burnout operation was successful," Gravel said on Monday. "In the short term we will be mopping up our burnout operation and we'll have crews on site in case anything changes, but right now we're sitting pretty good."
The department has 10 firefighters and two helicopters assigned to the Hearne Lake fire and has been working with the two lodges in the area - Hearne Lake Lodge and Namushka Lodge.
"They're aware of the fire situation and we've been working with them to fire smart their properties and there are sprinklers set up in case anything unexpected happens but at this time there are currently no threats to the values there."
The cooler, damper weather has helped the fire situation in the North Slave Region. Yellowknife itself had recorded eight millimetres of rain as of mid-afternoon Monday, according to Gravel.
"Today we have 21 Ontario crew members going home and we have another 21 going home tomorrow and by Friday we will probably release another 42 Ontario firefighters," said Gravel. "We have 20 fighters that came down from the Inuvik Region to support the Deh Cho who are going home tomorrow. So in total we have over 100 firefighters going home this week. We have had the chance this past weekend to give a lot of our guys some time off. Given this week's forecasted (wet) weather, hopefully it won't be too challenging a week for them."
Gravel said if the NWT continues to get wet weather, the department may be able to consider freeing up resources to send to Saskatchewan and Alberta to help with the fires there.
