In what they hope is yet another step in the healing process, four Slave Lake residents have taken to compiling the numerous stories of those who experienced the devastating impacts of the fire that ravaged the town in May of last year.
“It was idea that several of us came up with in the early days following the return from the evacuation,” said Joe McWilliams, editor of the Lakeside Leader newspaper and one of four individuals involved with the project.
Working with schoolteachers Len and Nicola Ramsey and Executive Director of the Lesser Slave Forest Education Society MJ Munn-Kristoff the group soon brought the idea to Slave Lake’s mayor and council.
“Everybody thought it was a great idea,” McWilliams said.
The motivation behind the project, he explained, is one of healing and history.
“Somehow we’ve all felt and all agreed that it was something that might be important to help in the healing process,” he said, adding that the group has already looked at a similar publication produced after a fire ravaged the city of Kelowna, British Columbia in 2003.
Compiling the accounts of the many residents that were evacuated and those who responded to the fire is also an effort to bring together a record of what happened.
“It is historically important for all kinds of reasons,” he said. “It was a big and life changing experience for almost everybody involved.”
The group has already received more than 100 submissions, ranging from uplifting accounts of the relief efforts to the melancholic return to a devastated town.
“It’s a big story,” he said, adding that they have received submissions from local school children, local RCMP officers and firefighters, as well as a number of people reflecting on what the experience meant to them.
While a majority of the submissions have come from their hometown, Athabasca’s role in the relief effort was not overlooked.
“The reception by the people of Athabasca is something that has been talked about again and again and again,” he said. “They really stepped up to the plate and made a big impression in the minds of the Slave Lakers. That’s something that sticks with people.”
He said they have already received seven or eight different accounts from the workers and volunteers who flocked to the Multiplex to provide for the evacuees.
With such a swell of submissions he said they would be looking to create a narrative in the book with different themed chapters.
The group is currently exploring some potential grants to put the book together, as the project is currently unfunded.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that we need hired help,” he said. “We don’t have any money now, but we hope some will shake loose.”
For a timeline, the group would like to have the book ready for the one-year anniversary of the fire, but unless funding comes through in the near future that might not be possible.
“There’s a huge amount of work to be done,” he said.
Given that the process is nowhere near completion, the door is still open for submissions, especially those from outside of the Slave Lake area.
Submissions can be sent to McWilliams at [email protected] or to Nicola Ramsey at [email protected].
