a slice from the Northern Ontario Wildfires

“emergency broadcast” aka my update from Ontario’s wildfire zone.

Doing things and communicating about things really are two different activities! Both of which I love, but staying on a remote island with limited electricity and network connection in the middle of thick wildfire smoke is making either pastime difficult.

Our (first) stay at Porphyry ended on Sunday. Lee, Ember and I were there for a week making art and enjoying, well, cool and dry and gorgeous weather. A week ago, we spent the night in Thunder Bay to wrangle some errands before moving on to Quetico for our two-week residency. The car read 42 degrees Celcius.

Maybe not an errand, but we visited the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. This photo was taken post- 42° and during a break in the haze, but we thoroughly enjoyed the A/C as well as the juried exhibition of 95 northern Ontario artists.

While checking out at the grocery store, we got the call that Quetico was evacuating. We knew that there was a pretty serious fire in the north end of the park, so in hindsight, it felt silly to have left Porphyry at all.

Hotel prices were already soaring as several remote communities fled wildfires to the city. By 5pm, to book a room that Monday night was $400 (and $800 for Tuesday), but we managed to get in just ahead of the peak for a slim $250.

9 pm on July 13: I left the hotel to get change for the laundromat, refuel, and apparently get my first of many views of orange skies and falling ash. This is on Arthur St in Thunder Bay, with Anemki Wajiw (Thunder Mountain, or Mount McKay) in the background.

From the hotel, we got another call – this time from the amazing folks at Porphyry who were inviting us back via the Thursday charter. In the interim, we’d stay at a private campground outside of town.

Lee, Ember and I stayed there for two nights under orange skies and falling ash, swimming in a boggy lake only once and with thanks to netted hammocks, enjoying refuge from the blackflies at least.

I also thrifted this book in Thunder Bay, and it was a welcome companion as we spent most of Wednesday not just masked for the smoke, but hiding from the flies too! Though speaking from a different context, offers this hopeful quote:

"All is far from lost. The Earth still glows with beauty and delight. Now is a time for commitment and collective action. It's a time to foster a new view of life on this planet, for just as we know that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, so we must now learn that mankind is not the centre of the biosphere."

(The book is from 1985, by the way.)

I miss a misty lake; this is wildfire smoke.

Those two days outside in thick smoke absolutely drenched our clothes and hair. I was glad to have found some N95 masks in the car, and even though the air "isn't that bad" as I type this, I'm still outside and wearing one anyway. I'm an anxious creature :)

After our two nights at Crow Lake, we packed up and drove down the Sibley Peninsula to catch the boat to Porphyry from the Silver Islet Marina. The boat was delayed due to visibility concerns, so we took a detour to the Thunder Bay Lookout over Lake Superior.

This experience brought a whole new meaning to “Breathtaking views"! Typically you can see 50 km across the lake from this well-known spot in Sleeping Giant Park. You know I put on a mask right after taking this picture!

Even from the lightkeeper’s house on Porphyry Point the night, the smoke has been thick enough that I can barely see the lake 10 metres away. Visibility (and therefore air quality) has improved a little bit with thanks to yesterday's brief thunderstorm – still no views of the Sleeping Giant a mere 6 km across Lake Superior, but I guess that’s still asking a lot all things considered.

This has been a Worth Mending “emergency broadcast” – I’m not in any danger, but wanted to share some snapshots from my experience so close to many of the Northwestern Ontario wildfires.

So what’s the plan now?

We’re gratefully back at Porphyry and safe, waiting for these storms to pass through and hopefully ease up some of the fires and smoke. I’m not feeling as motivated to spend every waking hour outside as I was last week, but hopefully that will change soon. I suppose this makes it a good time to tuck into my mending!

I packed several garments in need of repair, and since I spent much of last week exploring and weaving...most still need repair! But to celebrate last week’s weaving, I would love to show you what I made.

This set of three tiny tapestries, mounted to a weathered quarter of firewood, were inspired by Porphyry Point. I spent the week exploring and taking pictures, which I then simplified into sketches before re-interpreting as these little woven works. Weaving these made me realize that while I have plenty of yarn options in my stash when it comes to weaving socks, my palette was quite limited when trying to select colours to represent these landscapes! But as with any limited palette artistry, hopefully this led to the pieces feeling even more like a cohesive set.

Woven with my Swift Darning + Weaving Bundle, if you needed the reminder <3

For the moment, since Porphyry is powered only by solar, my access to electricity and internet is super limited. There’s plenty more I’d love to share and write, but I foresee a lot more reading in my next few days than communicating with the outside world. The air quality feels better after the rain, but still isn’t inspiring me to spend all my waking hours outside like I did last week.

It’s been a massive year for fires and heat waves, and even though I’m unusually close to these fire centres, I know that so so many of us are being impacted by this iteration of climate catastrophe.

How are you doing?

I don’t know what else to do but send love, and perhaps share the fundraisers that have been organized in support of evacuated First Nations communities in the area.

I’m just a (white, settler) tourist here, and while I love all the time I’ve spent in Thunder Bay, it pains me to see the “regular, everyday” structural racism and poverty that plague this unique city. Let alone the acute tragedy that is leaving a new wave of Indigenous people stranded with very little support. Nothing I can do or say as one person feels adequate, I’m just so helplessly angry at the politicians and corporations who led us to this moment.

To echo Rania El Mugammar, also on IG because that's where all information comes from now I guess, "We should be *so* ashamed to live in a place where Indigenous people are climate refugees on their homelands, all while being told that higher emissions, more fossil fuels & data centres will secure our futures."

And I am! There's really no amount of "conscious living" that can get us out of this, even though I'm a big fan of small actions that make me feel like I'm making an impact.

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