After 68% of the Northwest Territories were evacuated this fire season, a surprising face was spotted at the Westin Calgary Airport evacuation centre.
Former Premier Bob McLeod spoke with MyTrueNorthNow about his personal experience leaving the territory after the order was announced on Wednesday.
“We were looking at different options, and at first we thought we’d stay behind because my son has a boat, and if worst came to worst we would head out on the lake with the boat,” McLeod says.
“Information came out, and officials said that wasn’t a very good idea, so then we decided we were going to drive out in my son’s camper.”
“My oldest grandson and I left on Wednesday night around 7:00 that night, and we got 20 minutes out, and the road was closed, so we had to wait about four hours before we finally got moving, so we got to Fort Providence at 2:30 in the morning,” he adds.
McLeod’s story is similar to most evacuee’s, from difficult smoky conditions on the long road to southern Alberta, to making the hard decision to split up the family to reach safety quicker.
“We drove through the smoke and the fire like everybody else did, and we took off and drove through Enterprise, where there was still smoke,” McLeod says.
“We went as far as Stony Plain, and then yesterday we drove to Calgary, so now I’m here registering, to make sure people know we’re here.”
“We’re all split up right now, my youngest grandsons are camped out in a camper in Fort Providence, and my wife was in the hospital, so they medevacked… or, they transferred her to Vancouver hospital, so now we’re in three different places.”
“I think it makes it very hard when you’re all split up,” he adds.
The Westin in Calgary is currently serving as the southernmost evacuation centre for NWT residents affected by the wildfires, where evacuees are asked to register, and receive assistance during the evacuation.
