Courtesy of the "Canadian Medical Association Journal" (CMAJ) May 9th, 2016
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During the initial hours of the crisis I received a call from REOC asking if we would remain operational to supply water to the first responders.
The runners on Robert Grandjambe’s sled glide along a remote forest trail near Fort Chipewyan, as his team of working dogs pull him to a good spot to cut wood for his stove.
You and a friend are heading to a big fishing derby being held in Fort Chipewyan – a remote community on the edge of Wood Buffalo National Park.
An ice fog lingers as the sun rises slowly behind the trees surrounding the Birchwood Trails.
There’s an affirming sense of community here. You see it in the families who are ice skating on a community rink and on the faces of people snowmobiling across the frozen belly of the Snye River, towards the remote trails on its opposite shore.
In 1972, the analogue television signal in Fort McMurray lasted a few hours a day. It’s one of the curiosities that Roseann Davidson remembers best about her first six-month stay here, a reminder of how remote things were.
From his home in Fort Chipewyan, 83-year-old Oliver Glanfield recounts watching the survey men pound in the first marker staking Highway 63’s northward stretch from Wandering River to Fort McMurray.
From the center of a rusted metal fire pit, split birch and poplar groans as a husk of orange flame rises into the winter air.