LyttonStrong One Year Later: a dedication to our friends and colleagues in Lytton

Image courtesy of the Narwhal

As this blog is being written, the dry and hot conditions in Lytton have once again aggravated the surrounding fire activity. As of Tuesday, July 26th, the Nohomin Creek wildfire located just less than 2 km of Lytton was growing beyond 2,300 hectares (CTV News). As the village rebuild is slated to start in the fall, the fear of more record-breaking temperatures and dry conditions will set off yet another deadly fire. As people living outside of the region, we watch with our own looming climate disaster anxieties, wishing we could do something to help. Many people have helped by donating money, food, and other necessities. The truth is until we walk in their shoes, we can never truly comprehend the gravity of the loss and despair from this displacement. The rebuilding process has been criticized for being slow and uncoordinated. But more on that later.  

LyttonStrong

During the summer and fall of 2021, Lytton and many surrounding First Nations and communities’ lives were drastically altered by fires and floods. Almost 90% of Lytton was destroyed and communities such as Nooaitch, Kanaka Bar, Siska, Skuppah, Nicomen, Shackan, Cook’s Ferry, Oregon Jack Creek, and Ashcroft were also greatly impacted.

Our team at ZN has been working in the Fraser Canyon region for several years. We work very closely with Kanaka Bar and personally know people who live in Lytton and were directly impacted by the wildfires. In July of 2021, we started a monthly e-newsletter bulletin initiative intended to help evacuees to gain easy and quick access to details about funding, resources and services. We thought that by providing links to such information, we could perhaps save impacted people the time and effort. The #LyttonStrong bulletin was our way of giving back to a region that has supported us over the years. We thank friends in the region who have supported our pro-bono initiative by spreading the word and feeding us information to include in the bulletin. One person in particular is Kathryn Brooks, an evacuee who has shared her journey with us from day one.   

Image courtesy of the Guardian

Rebuilding Lytton

More than a year has passed, there is frustration about the slow pace of the rebuild. People are traumatized, angry, tired and homeless. What is taking so long? Shouldn’t the government be doing more? What’s it going to be like this year, or the next when temperature is certain to keep rising? These are all questions that only add fuel to the fire (no pun intended). There have been many articles written and interviews conducted to address these questions. Since last year, the provincial government has announced fund commitments to aid in various aspects of the rebuild on several occasions. While much work is being done in the background, to this day, the evacuees cannot come home.

Doing our part

The #LyttonStrong bulletin initiative came to an end as of June, 2022. What we learned from the past year is that whatever form the help comes in, it has to serve the people of Lytton in a useful way and we strongly felt that the only way to achieve that is by working closely with the Village of Lytton, community champions, and other organizations/groups from Lytton and surrounding area.

We are currently exploring the possibility of turning the bulletin initiative into an interactive map that shows the various rebuild efforts taking place in the region, a visual tool for all affected communities to locate resources and track rebuild progress with. A short survey is being canvassed to better understand people’s needs while we embark on this new project.

We send the people of Lytton strength while keeping faith that Lytton will come back a stronger, more resilient community.

Trees of Lytton - Image courtesy of Johnny Liu