There are so many lessons to be learned from the tragedy of the Fort McMurray fire … although the foremost one was likely learned by rural Saskatchewan long ago.
At 56.78 degrees latitude and 454 kilometres northeast of the next biggest urban centre, Edmonton, Fort McMurray is truly an isolated city.
Moreover, it is isolated by miles upon square miles of northern boreal forest, making it more isolated than most rural Saskatchewan communities.
But what this city of 82,000 shares with a lot of rural Saskatchewan communities is the realization that people in such communities truly need to pull together to support each other in both the good times and bad.
In many ways, this is very much a trait of all of Canada that takes its name from the Huron-Iroquois word for village.
We all can relate to the struggle of our village. We relate to the struggles of our neighbour’s village and want to help in tough times.
Through this, we saw much compassion and decency. We saw with Edmonton residents offering up their homes to fire refugees. We saw people driving up and down Alberta Hwy. 63 to provide gas to stranded evacuees.
As inspiring was the bravery of those fighting the fire and those Fort McMurray residents that literally had to drive through fire to get to safety.
That evacuees did this in a calm, safe manner without endangering each other says so much. That they would share what little food they had with them or that they gave up their beds in evacuation centres for those in greater need said much about the best in people.
So many times we hear of stress or personal crisis bringing out the worst of people. In Fort McMurray, the vast, vast majority of stories have been about this tragedy bringing out the best in people.
This is a trait often found in smaller and isolated communities. It is all simply part of the lifestyle.
That said, this tragedy has, sadly, demonstrated the penchant of others to reveal themselves at their worse.
And toning down of rhetoric from all sides would have been greatly appreciated.
The worse such rhetoric came from the environmental left – some of who couldn’t even wait for the evacuees to arrive to safety before they were already on social media to announce Fort McMurray residents were somehow getting what they deserved.
One such idiotic comment came from a one-time Alberta NDP candidate, Tom Moffatt, who posted on his on Twitter account: “Karmic #climatechange fire burns CDN oilsands city.” For his trouble, he was suspended from this job.
Others encouraged: “Burn, tar sands, burn!” Slightly less hostile social media posts suggested: “I hope everyone gets the irony of a massive fire in the heart of big oil country.”
Even Green Party leader Elizabeth May told reporters: “Of course, it’s due to global emissions.”
This, of course, is nonsense.
Something as unpredictable as a northern forest fire –whose devastation is driven by high winds and bad luck –cannot be directly attributed to climate change.
In fact, no credible scientist would dare make such a claim.
Admittedly, it wasn’t just crazy left-wingers off their rockers.
There were plenty of right-wingers accusing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley of being the arsonists.
Notley was evidently guilty because – at least according to the nonsense news from Ezra Levant’s The Rebel – her government seemed to have “money for everything else… but not for firefighters.”
Other posts were more crude and vicious, blaming the matter of Syrian refugees.
But while the Fort McMurray fires brought out the worst in some, it mostly reminded us we are all part of a caring community.
