The kindness of strangers is feeding livestock that would have otherwise gone hungry in a remote B.C. community hit twice by wildfire.
More than a dozen ranchers and farmers in Riske Creek west of Williams Lake welcomed donations of 44 round bales of hay and six pallets of feed from Foothills residents and businesses earlier this week to feed for their four-legged survivors.
“We don’t have any grassland left – literally none,” said Kaitlyn Dorion, a farmer in Riske Creek. “It’s comforting to know that people are far more generous than I would have imagined, all for these strangers. Their compassion has been outstanding. I can’t thank everyone enough who came together to help.”
Dorion and her father-in-law were greeted with smiles and tears when they delivered the donated hay and feed to their neighbours earlier this week.
“One lady I took the first delivery to had lost her whole hay stack and all of her pasture for her animals,” she said. “She was very emotional over the whole thing.”
Riske Creek was hit by wildfire first in early July. Although farmers and ranchers were told to evacuate their homes, most refused.
“We couldn’t afford to leave everything behind,” Dorion said. “When it first happened there were no firefighters out here. Because it blew up everywhere in the province so fast, they were stretched too thin.”
Dorion’s fiancé and other neighbours got to work using heavy equipment to place fireguards around the houses, saving all but one home.
“If we had not been here we would have lost all of them,” she said, adding that while no livestock were lost, several pets had perished.
Due to the evacuation and the main highway to Williams Lake closing, Dorion said she and her neighbours were cut off from supplies for three weeks.
“To feed our local logging crews was a challenge,” she said. “We had to band together to feed all of these guys. We had a few trucks of donations that managed to get through to us.”
When the blaze was under control several days later, a second wildfire ravaged the area in mid-August, said Dorion. Another evacuation was issued.
“We thought we were done with it a few weeks ago and then it came from a different direction over the hill and took out one of our close neighbour’s house,” she said. “They had sent our machines to other fires and we had nobody to help us out at that point in time.”
Dorion’s sister Lauren happened to be visiting when the first fire hit. She was there for Dorion’s wedding, which was postponed due to the fires.
Lauren called Black Diamond Land & Cattle Company, where she works as a horse manager, and Bar T5 Trailer and Tack north of Millarville to request help.
“I wanted to help these people because they didn’t really have anyone else,” she said. “Anything they would have fed their horses on until October was burned away.”
Black Diamond Land & Cattle Company arranged the donation of round bales and networked with Calgary companies to secure a driver and equipment to transport the bales to the remote community.
Meanwhile, Bar T5 collected donations of feed.
Feed manager Jackie Parkinson said she posted requests on Facebook and made a sign for the counter.
“All of our customers were fantastic,” she said. “Some of them would either pay for a bag of feed or buy two or three bags of feed or would just give me cash. We had some huge donations.”
Bar T5 collected donations from customers, feed companies and even the Cowboy Trail Church in Cochrane where Parkinson’s mom attends.
“People really wanted to help,” Parkinson said. “The customers at Bar T5 are wonderful.”
Lauren said the feed and hay arrived in B.C. on Sunday.
“One family lost everything but their house,” she said. “We gave them five round bales and 25 bags of feed. That’s a family that benefitted a lot and I was really happy to see them get that.”
Lauren said it was amazing to watch everyone pull together to help strangers.
“I’ve heard from a couple families and they were so thankful,” she said. “It’s just a really good feeling to know that everybody has each other’s backs.”
For those who lost so much in the Riske Creek wildfires, they’re taking it one step at a time.
“We are getting back on our feet,” said Dorion. “It’s slowly getting back to normal.”
