Couple randomly attacked, 1 stabbed, by group of teens in Toronto, police say
A man has been transported to hospital after police say he was stabbed in a random attack carried out by a group of teens in Toronto on Friday night.
Over this past week, Indigenous fire response teams in British Columbia have been critical in stopping flames, protecting property and guiding firefighters through difficult terrain.
But Indigenous crews across the country say governments have let too much of their intergenerational knowledge fall by the wayside.
Following a record-breaking heat wave, more than 200 wildfires have caused untold levels of destruction across British Columbia. Working alongside the BC Wildfire Service in stopping flames are volunteer fire teams made up of dozens of Skeetchestn Indian Band members whose sense of responsibility is “immense.”
“Everybody here is doing their absolute most. But most of us feel we're not doing enough,” said Joanne Hammond, who’s the director of Skeetchestn Natural Resources -- a group which normally looks after archeology, forestry and cultural heritage sites.
But during a crisis like this, they’ve been coordinating all emergency response in the area.
Volunteer Skeetchestn Fire Watchers track the path of fires and direct spots for firefighters to target.
Others have set up physical barriers otherwise called fireguards, which successfully steered the fires away from their reserve and the residences of nearby ranchers.
And, early on, Indigenous fire teams evacuated the band’s reserve just northwest of Kamloops, as the Sparks Lake wildfires spread across nearly 400 square kilometers.
“They leave everything in our trust, in our care,” Hammond told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. “They're trusting us to look after the entire community so they’ll have something to come back to.”
Kukpi7 Chief Darrel Draney told CTVNews.ca around 75 Skeetchestn members, staff, and local non-Indigenous people are “leading an unprecedented fire response,” which also includes ensuring water trucks are filled and protecting critical infrastructure serving the local area.
Members of his reserve are guiding and working with government front-line crews in installing rooftop sprinklers and clearing out potential ignition sources, such as dry vegetation.
“The combination of traditional knowledge and Western practices has been key to fighting this fire and will remain at the heart of our response,” Draney said in a press release.
“We believe this First Nations-led, locally informed fire response based in mutual care and cooperation must be a model for successful emergency management in the future.”
Amy Christianson, an Alberta-based Métis fire research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, agreed but felt “First Nations crews do not get the credit they deserve in fire management in Canada.”
Last week, she tweeted that sentence alongside a map of British Columbia, which showed how forest fires hotspots stopped just outside of the Skeetchestn reserve boundary. Christianson said Indigenous fire teams in rural, isolated areas are some of the most overlooked in terms of their impact.
Despite Skeetchestn Indian Band only having 350 people, a fifth of them stayed behind to help stop the fires.
“They really get organized very quickly because they have that kind of underlying knowledge and skills,” Christianson told CTVNews.ca, adding that this intergenerational knowledge is crucial in guiding firefighters to reservoirs and knowing which paths to avoid.
“For me, and the communities I work with, there’s a real sense of pride,” she said, and even noted First Nations communities -- unaffected by wildfires -- such as the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nations, have stepped up by hosting wildfire evacuees on their land.
Christianson, who researches communities’ responses to fires, noted there was a similar lack of mainstream acknowledgement of how Indigenous fire crews Whitefish Lake First Nation 459 in Alberta fought to end wildfires there in 2011.
For Indigenous fire teams from across Canada, this lack of recognition is most disheartening on the government level. So some are in the midst of creating new status quos to better highlight their millennia-old knowledge.
Chad Thomas is the CEO of Yukon First Nations Wildfire -- a rotating group of around 80 Indigenous firefighters who are trained and spend six to four months at a time on the front lines tackling blazes.
“They're drawn to it because it's something that First Nations have been doing on their traditional territories for thousands of years,” Thomas, a member of the Tahltan First Nation in northern B.C. and southern Yukon, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.
He said many on his crew grew up “being taught how to be stewards of the land” after listening to stories of their grandparents, aunts or uncles who also fought fires.
Part of the reason Thomas started his organization, which hasn’t been asked to help in B.C., was because in rural Northern Canada, he feels prospective Indigenous firefighters can have more of a place to shine and hone their craft.
He said far too often, Indigenous fire crews like his aren’t listened to or face far too much resistance from government agencies.
For example, for decades, governments failed to listen to Indigenous knowledge keepers when it came to the need for prescribed burnings, which Natural Resources Canada acknowledges reduces the number of wildfires. Although, it’s a part of provincial and territorial policies now, Thomas said the fires are still too intense -- something Indigenous fire experts have been saying for years.
“When we don't control our forest, Mother Nature's going to let you know that it's upset,” Thomas said, explaining how his crew see their work as more of a legacy.
That’s why a huge part of Yukon First Nations Wildfire’s work involves codifying their intergenerational learnings so, “we will retain this knowledge as an organization and pass it on.”
Brady Highway is a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan who has fought more than 200 fires in his career. He said there’s a huge gap when it comes to governments directly partnering with Indigenous knowledge keepers and firefighters.
“It doesn’t really make sense for our Indigenous fire crews to get overlooked,” Highway told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.
He explained that in his province of Saskatchewan, for example, rules put more value on certain types of formal firefighting experience over others. So what ends up happening is people who are the most knowledgeable of the land are only called in for clean-up or tertiary roles, Highway said.
So to help change this, Highway, a project manager for the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, is helping to grow and train a national network of Indigenous Guardians who can help in decision making for tracking and tackling fires, as well as issues involving land use, forest management or conservation.
“We depend on these landscapes to be healthy so it’s really important that we have a way of helping,” Highway said.
Hammond who’s coordinating Indigenous fire teams in B.C. agreed. She added that the status quo -- where Indigenous fire crews aren’t treated as true collaborators -- “won’t do anymore.”
She called for full-time First Nations liaisons within provincial bodies like BC Wildfire Service, so “that when the emergency happens, they are there.”
“You can’t just call on someone every three years and expect that to work,” Hammond said.
“First Nations communities are the experts at their land and how to look after it. And they need to be involved in a fairly formal and aggressive way in the fire response structure that provincial governments run.”
A man has been transported to hospital after police say he was stabbed in a random attack carried out by a group of teens in Toronto on Friday night.
Ron Ellis, who played over 1,000 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs and was a member of Canada's team at the 1972 Summit Series, has died at age 79.
The wildfire that sparked Friday and caused evacuation orders for more than 3,000 people in Fort Nelson, B.C., and the nearby Fort Nelson First Nation, has grown to nearly 1,700 hectares in size, according to a Saturday morning update from the BC Wildfire Service.
The final of the 68th Eurovision Song Contest kicked off Saturday in the Swedish city of Malmo after days of protests and offstage drama that have tipped the feelgood musical celebration into a chaotic pressure cooker overshadowed by the war in Gaza.
From London, to Grand Bend, Collingwood and Guelph, here are some highlights of Friday night and Saturday morning's northern lights display.
The rolling hills leading to the hamlet of Rosebud are dotted with sprawling farms and cattle pastures -- and a sign sporting a simple message: No Race Track.
Irresponsibly using a credit card can land you in financial trouble, but personal finance columnist Christopher Liew says when used properly, it can be a powerful wealth-building tool that can help grow your credit profile and create new opportunities.
Where you live plays a big factor in what you pay at the grocery store. And while it's no secret the same item may have a different price depending on the store, city or province, we wanted to see just how big the differences are, and why.
A growing number of civilians and police officers are demanding the dismissal and arrest of Haiti's police chief as heavily armed gangs launched a new attack in the capital of Port-au-Prince, seizing control of yet another police station early Saturday.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.