When the smoke clears: Northern Sask. wildfires leave many businesses in limbo
Owners preparing for what could be a new reality
Wildfires have burned through much of northern Saskatchewan, forcing thousands from their homes and leaving many business owners who rely on local tourism in limbo.
While some have been left with nothing, even those whose businesses survived are left with uncertainty about what's next.
"We were in our first week of summer operations for this season when the evacuation order came," said Cindy Ouellet, who owns the T&D Amisk camp — about 30 kilometres from Denare Beach — alongside her husband Nick.
She said they had to evacuate guests out of the camp on May 28, then go through and cancel bookings up to July 5 "week-by-week."
Ouellet said the aftermath of the wildfires has been "devastating" for her business.
"Our season runs from the last week of May to typically the 1st of October," she said. "We do some small business operations in the winter, but that's very minimal compared to the summer months. And the month of June is our main bread and butter."
Ouellet said she is fortunate her business is covered by a business interruption insurance policy. She had to use it once before during the pandemic, when her business was shut down for a year and a half.
Not everyone has that option. Ouellet said she made a private Facebook group to help those who have suffered losses — many of them friends and "fellow business owners."
She said the group is a place solely for those who need to rebuild. It will provide "all the resources possible," including RTM providers, builders, contractors and insurance information.
"Seeing friends absolutely desperate and lost, suffering this devastation and then on top of it having to make really big decisions fairly quickly," Ouellet said. "Nobody should have to do that without some sort of help."
Ouellet and her husband have also housed residents as they begin to return to the area and crews coming in to help rebuild.
Earlier this month, owners of The Ridge on Amisk Resort announced it as a total loss after the Wolf fire engulfed the northern village of Denare Beach.
"Our life savings, dreams, our blood, sweat and tears along with our hearts and souls, in one afternoon it was all taken away," the post said.
Neil MacAuley, the owner and operator of La Ronge Fishing Adventures, is grappling with what work could look like once the smoke settles.
He runs a third-generation charter operation that provides full and half-day guided fishing, and all the gear required.
MacAuley said that as the wildfire season has gotten worse over the last couple of years, people in the community have become "a little uneasy."
"You have your clients and your guests out there, and they're watching giant plumes of smoke billowing up, you know, 10 to 15 miles away," he said. "You're trying to reassure them that you know, we're going to be OK, it's safe."
MacAuley said he hopes it will be a good season for his business, but it heavily relies on the campgrounds in the area, many which have burned down.
"We've already had about seven or eight cancellations already. So we're going to try and fill those up, but it's going to be tough for us."
He said many of those calling to cancel have been people who have lost property in the fire.
MacAuley is not the only business owner experiencing a slew of cancellations. Glen Thompson, one of the owners of Osprey Wings, an air charter company in northern Saskatchewan, said between 80 and 100 flights have been cancelled so far.
"That's probably in the neighborhood of a couple hundred-thousand worth of lost revenue," he said, adding that many businesses are "suffering."
Osprey Wings provides flights for tourism, mining, the public service sector and fire suppression. Thompson said it's run by 25 people across 994 planes, and services hundreds of businesses across areas north, east and west of La Ronge and Mississippi.
Over the last few months, the company has been helping fire chiefs and firefighters travel around to outfitters camps and sites that needed pumps set up, Thompson said.
As the fire situation improves, he said the next priority is to get back to business and help the community as much as possible.
"Hopefully we can get things some semblance of normalcy back into our northern community," Thompson said.
"If you've ever been to northern Saskatchewan, it's just probably one of the neatest experiences you'll ever have in your lifetime."
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With files from Blue Sky