From limited weddings to shuttered businesses: How Yellowknife residents are facing evacuation

Bradley Dawley’s week has unfolded in ways he could’ve never imagined.

The Yellowknife resident and his fiancée were prepared to tie the knot on Saturday at a ceremony with 130 guests, but after an evacuation order was called in the city of about 22,000 residents due to the threat of nearby wildfires, their plans started to come undone one by one.

Thinking on their feet and still planning to evacuate by Friday morning, Dawley and his fiancée decided the best course of action would be to get married sooner — since both their parents had made the journey to the territorial capital for the occasion and their photographer was still in town.

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The two said their vows in front of a small crowd Thursday afternoon as a cloud of smoke hung over them and firefighters ran in their vicinity, working to limit the devastation in the community.

Dawley said they kept the ceremony intimate so as not to put anybody else in danger, but he still felt “conflicted” about the entire situation.

“Instead of 130 people, it ended up being just nine of us,” he told CTVNews.ca in an interview Thursday, an hour after the wedding ceremony wrapped up.

“It's been really strange.”

Residents all throughout Yellowknife were scrambling on Thursday to fireproof their properties, pack their belongings and prepare for the unknown in the days and weeks ahead due to the phased evacuation order that was triggered the night before by wildfires spreading in the region. As of Thursday, there were 236 active wildfires in the Northwest Territories, which had affected an area of approximately 21,262 square kilometres.

The newlyweds had their truck packed with some paintings, cans of maple syrup and their passports, ready for their drive from Yellowknife to cross into Alberta on Friday, when their parents would be taking chartered flights to Alberta as well.

“We're definitely scared, but you take it in stride,” Dawley said.

“We're looking at the sky and it's a nice, bright blue day outside, but we know that there is a threat impeding us right now.”

Heavy smoke from nearby wildfires fills the sky in Yellowknife on Tuesday, August 15, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Angela Gzowski

Tony Brushett, who runs the Salvation Army in the Northwest Territories, said his organization was working to get “extremely vulnerable” residents with physical health, mental health and addictions issues out of the community as soon as possible.

In total, he said roughly 100 clients of the charitable organization were ready to be flown to three different parts of Alberta — Fort McMurray, Edmonton and Calgary.

Brushett, his wife and their son plan to drive to Calgary from Highway 3 — the only way out of Yellowknife by car at the moment — either Thursday evening or Friday morning.

“I don't feel like (the fire is) gonna come and engulf the city, but I understand nobody can take chances,” he told CTVNews.ca over the phone Thursday as he loaded his car for the journey.

“We'll just drive a couple of days away and stay close by and be ready to come back when they give us the all clear.”

Brushett said the mood in Yellowknife has been “all over the place” during this wildfire season, which has forced the evacuations of several communities in the Northwest Territories. 

At one point on Thursday, he said he saw people out shopping, dining at restaurants and at the post office like “nothing was going on,” but an hour or so later, when the wind caused smoke to drift back into the community, “the anxiety levels of a lot of people” went back up again.

“And if you were to walk down the streets here, most days now remind me of the COVID days; everybody's masked,” Brushett added.

Kyle Thomas, who owns a micro-bakery and farm store in Yellowknife with his wife that was forced to shut down on Thursday, was trying his best to exude calm.

The couple was planning to stick it out in Yellowknife for as long as they could because they were concerned about leaving their farm animals, bees and produce behind, Thomas said.

Vehicles line-up for fuel at Fort Providence, N.W.T., on the only road south from Yellowknife, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

“If we leave for an extended period of time and there is no rain or what have you, then that is a loss to us and that's something that we don't want to grapple with, even at this time,” he said.

In the meantime, Thomas said he was counting on the efforts of firefighters and military personnel who were called into the Northwest Territories to keep fires to a minimum, along with the additional fireproofing of his farm that he planned to do with his newly married friend Dawley, who runs a contracting business.

“Running any restaurant or food production farm has very tight margins as it is. We're definitely not the only ones in town who are going to roll those dice to see how it goes, so we're just going to hope that it's not for a long time,” he added.

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Dr. Courtney Howard, an emergency room doctor who is from Yellowknife, said she was trying her best not to “doomscroll,” or spend an excessive amount of time reading negative news online about what was happening in her hometown, on Thursday.

Howard, who was the lead author of a 2021 study that found that extended exposure to wildfire smoke is associated with an increased number of ER visits for asthma and primary care visits for pneumonia and coughing, said she’s concerned for the wellbeing of everyone impacted.

“They've been living in that for weeks now (in the Northwest Territories),” Howard, who was in Ottawa for a conference, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview Thursday.

“So that means that they have been cooped up in their houses, irritable, unable to go outside and exercise and connect with the land the way they usually would and also tracking these wildfires that have been coming steadily closer, so that feeling of impending doom and uncertainty and what should I do has been really, really difficult.”

Howard said she’s been keeping regular contact with her sister, who has been living in her house in Yellowknife for the past year while she was completing a master’s degree in England, and guiding her through the evacuation order and ongoing wildfire season.

“We've been in constant communication with her about what she should do and how she should go about FireSmarting our house,” Howard said. 

Fortunately, she said her sister had a flight to Penticton, B.C., previously booked for Thursday, so she was able to get out safely. Still, Howard is wondering how long she and the rest of her community will have to wait until they can return home.

“We're all just now sending energy and best wishes to everybody who is having to drive out through the long stretches of highway and in an uncertain fire situation and extending positivity and helpful weather patterns their way.”

Several crowdfunding campaigns have been set up to support those impacted by the wildfires in the Northwest Territories including the United Way’s NWT Emergency Response campaign.