Dr. Charles Helm of Tumbler Ridge used to look forward to summer. Now that there are wildfires, he fears it
This week, Dr. Charles Helm and his wife are safe at home in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., after having to leave because of a wildfire.
Helm, a semi-retired doctor who has lived in the town for 28 years and written several books about its history, said, “Any community that is threatened by wildfires is a tragedy. Everyone is very stressed, and it’s horrible.”
“You can’t make it sound worse than it is.”
On Thursday, evacuation orders for the District of Tumbler Ridge were changed to evacuation alerts. This is a town of about 2,500 people in the foothills of the Rockies, about an hour’s drive south of Dawson Creek.
Residents like Helm have to be ready to leave at any time in case the winds change and blow the West Kiskatinaw River wildfire back toward town. But it looks like it will rain on Sunday and Monday, so there is hope.
Residents of Tumbler Ridge, like Helm, and many other places in B.C. now spend their summers keeping an eye out for wildfires that could destroy whole towns.
“Every year, it’s like playing Russian roulette to see which town will be hit the hardest,” he said. “It’s very worrisome, and it does seem to be getting worse.”
Helm, like other people who live in Tumbler Ridge, hopes that wildfires will stay away from the town, which is beautiful and has a lot of geological history. It has avoided becoming a ghost town and is now a paradise for people who love the outdoors and amateur archaeologists.
From mining to the heart of the backcountr
One of Canada’s five Geoparks is in Tumbler Ridge. Geoparks are areas with internationally important geology, geography, or human history that have to do with Earth.
The Geopark name was given in 2015, 15 years after two boys found dinosaur footprints while hiking. Helm’s eight-year-old son was one of those boys.
Manda Maggs, the director of the Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark, says that the designation was a game-changer for the district, which was founded in 1981 as a mining town for metallurgical coal used to make steel.
It couldn’t have come at a better time. Like many mining towns, Tumbler Ridge went through a lot of boom and bust times, and there was a good chance that it would become a ghost town.
Tumbler Ridge didn’t die a quiet death. Instead, it quickly became known as a backcountry mecca with beautiful terrain that offers a lot of ways to enjoy the outdoors.
“People aren’t moving there just because they got a job at the mine,” Maggs said.
“They are moving there because they can work from home and want to be close to all these backcountry trails.”
The area is so beautiful that in 2019, HBO put one of six thrones in different places around the world to promote the last season of Games of Thrones.
It was the only one in North America. It was in Tumbler Ridge.
Dinosaurs afoo
As a bonus, anyone exploring the nearby area has a pretty good chance of stumbling upon an archaeological artifact.
“There’s so little paleontology work that’s been done in the area,” she said. “We know that the best fossils haven’t yet been found.”
Maggs says the area is home to more than half of the world’s tyrannosaurid trackway — footprints left in the sand. There are also crocodilian and Parasaur tracks and actual fossils.
The area’s geology is so rich with historical artifacts that Helm, the town physician, has shifted his career focus from medicine to focus more on paleontology.
He hopes to continue his work but worries about the future, given that each summer seems to bring some form of wildfire scare now.
“I dread summer these days. I don’t look forward to it like I used to,” he said. “It’s very worrisome, and it does seem to be getting worse.”