The First Nation and its members are among several communities and individuals grappling with difficult questions about how best to rebuild after evacuating…
Above its banks, the charred remains of yellow pines cover the mountains like burnt matchsticks — relics of a wildfire that roared across the landscape just months earlier.
For some, moving forward means working to restore the highway that they say is not only a transport route but the connective tissue of community. Highway 8, a scenic roadway that snakes its way along the Nicola River between Spences Bridge and Merritt, has proven more difficult. Chief Christine Minnabarriet said most reserves lack water and other infrastructure to make them inhabitable and 85 per cent of members live off-reserve. Now, they are further divided by a broken highway.
“We’re constantly told that we’re resilient people and it’s true,” she says. “But I don’t want to be resilient, I want to be OK. I want to know that nothing is coming at me tomorrow.” “We eat out of that river, we swim in that river, we pray in that river. It is just so central to our beings that they need to see it as more than just a slab of pavement, it’s the connection between the nation,” she said.
York and Cowan were reluctant to leave when Minnabarriet knocked on their door Nov. 15 telling them they had to evacuate. It felt like they were still settling in after fleeing the wildfires and they chose to stay.Article content “It sounded like a highway truck with their blades down scraping the highway and of course you think, oh God, the highway’s got through. But it wasn’t,” she said.
“Your home is where your heart is, and, in our case, when you think of our tradition, it’s where your spirit is,” said Cowan, who was also diagnosed with cancer last year.Article content York said she takes care of herself by connecting with friends and loved ones, many of whom have regularly checked in by phone even if they can’t in person.Article content
“When we get home, we get home. I’m not going to worry about it, because you just get yourself sick, right, anticipating things,” York said. Washington said she didn’t have time to pack a suitcase and struggled to wake her 82-year-old sister, who was on medication following a stroke. When she left the house and reached the highway, she said she was so frozen with fear that she doesn’t believe she would have driven forward had it not been for her granddaughter, urging her on.
She participated in a session with an agency that taught survivors to notice the physical reactions they had to trauma, which she said she found helpful but impersonal. “The whole intent was to help them acknowledge this happened to them and that somebody cared enough to hear how they were affected,” Michel said.
Paul Joe, who also remains evacuated, joined friends from the neighbouring Nooaitch Indian Band at a table.
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