‘Hope and the beauty’: Wildfire serves as ominous backdrop to grad photos

An ominous wall of smoke became the backdrop for a pair of Flin Flon students’ graduation photos. CTV’s Danton Unger explains.

A wall of smoke and flame became an ominous backdrop for two Flin Flon, Man., students — dressed to the nines for graduation. The fire was relatively small but within 24 hours, the grads were racing to escape the blaze.

It was late May when Patryck Benoit and Lexsey Hynes hiked up to a rocky area outside Flin Flon for a graduation photoshoot.

“We saw the smoke, and we thought it made like a really great backdrop, something really dramatic,” said Hynes, adding it felt like something out of a dystopian movie. “I never thought it would end up the way that it ended up being.”

Photographer Brandy Bloxom, who captured the photos, said she felt the whole experience was somewhat symbolic.

“Uncertainty of their future, their world, where they’re going to do — and it was kind of like we’re all in the same spot, you know,” she said.

It was Bloxom’s last photoshoot before all their lives changed. Less than a day later, the flames billowed out of control forcing Hynes, Benoit and thousands of others to evacuate their homes for nearly a month.

“We were doing exams that day and I had just gotten home,” Benoit said. “I was just sitting there on the couch and then my dad runs into the house, ‘We’re being evacuated,’ and I’m just confused, not ready for it.”

He said there was a scramble to gather their belongings and get out of town with just a few hours notice.

“It spiralled out of control in such a short amount of time,” he said.

‘I lost my whole community’

The blaze went on to become one of the largest in the province, combining with another fire and growing to be seven times the size of Winnipeg.

For many on the Saskatchewan-side of the border, when they returned, all that was left was ash.

“I lost my whole community,” said Bloxom, whose home in Denare Beach, Sask., burned to the ground just days after the photoshoot with Hynes and Benoit.

Bloxom said it took her months to gather the strength to edit the photos.

“It was very difficult for me, because it brings me right back to that same time frame,” she said. “I had to revisit that day and then see everything.”

‘Hope and beauty’ in the middle of uncertainty

For Hynes and Benoit, it’s surreal looking back at the photos now. They hold almost an eerie symbolism of their entire high school experience.

It started in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and ended with a massive wildfire evacuation.

“It was kind of disheartening, a little bit that we work so hard for so long, and the date is set, and you’re so excited, and then it all just gets derailed,” she said.

For Bloxom, who plans to rebuild her home, looking at the photos now, she sees something new — resilience.

“The hope and the beauty, you know, there’s something beautiful in it.”