Four days after learning they lost both of their properties in Fort McMurray, Chris Wilkinson and his fiancée Robyn Woods are still struggling to make sense of their nightmare.
“Every morning we wake up hoping it was just a bad dream, but unfortunately it’s not,” said Woods, trailing off.
“My first thought was it’s just stuff, that it can all be replaced, but then a few days go by and things keep popping into your mind,” she said, choking back tears.
“My dad passed away four years ago and I had stuff that was his that I held onto and the realization that that was gone and I’ll never get it back…that’s the hardest thing.”
The couple is among more than 88,000 people who were evacuated from Fort McMurray as the raging wildfire enclosed on the northern Alberta Community, May 3.
For Wilkinson he said the hardest part is not knowing what the future holds.
“There’s a lot of what ifs and uncertainties right now,” he said, with tears welling up in his eyes.
“We just don’t know what the future holds.”
Two days prior to the mandatory evacuation the couple were enjoying their day off when they became aware that something was amiss.
“Around four or five o’clock you could see plumes of smoke coming from the south,” said Wilkinson, who owns two properties with his soon-to-be wife in the Tiberlea neighborhood.
“We started seeing all the water bombers so we knew it was kind of serious, but we thought the fire was far away enough from the city.”
All of that changed Monday morning.
“It was really smoky, to the point we couldn’t even be outside,” recalled Woods.
“It was both our days off and we wanted to enjoy our backyard, but we couldn’t because the smoke was just too irritating.”
The following morning, May 3, things seemed to change for the better as the smoke lifted and the fire chief reassured residents the fire wasn’t an immediate threat.
Just by coincidence the couple had plans to go to St. Alberta that afternoon for a medical appointment, hours before the mandatory evacuation order was issued.
“I woke up, went to the gym, there was no smoke in the air, came home walked our dog Dozer, the air quality was really good and there were no signs of smoke in the air so we thought things were fine,” said Woods.
After packing up a few things and leaving their dog behind the couple left the city.
“We just threw in a couple things, not even thinking what should we grab just in case, because for what we knew it was going to be fine,” explained Woods.
As the couple pulled into St. Alberta that afternoon they knew things had gone from bad to worse.
“Lucky my girlfriend, who was at work, I knew she was going to be coming to our house to let Dozer out so I told her there was a backpack sitting in a room and to grab a couple of my grandmothers heirloom pieces, our passports, wedding bands and just leave it by the front door,” said Woods, adding she knew her girlfriend needed to go back to her own place to grab her own things.
Woods then called another girlfriend who spent an hour in gridlock trying to get to their house to grab the dog and the backpack.
On Thursday morning, two days after the mandatory evacuation, the couple got the devastating news that their house was no longer standing.
“Our alarm kept going off, you could see notifications on my phone, every five minutes it was something and then our neighbour sent us pictures and that was it,” said Wilkinson.
“We thought we were out of the clear, because we’re so far back in the subdivision, but it seems like we got hit the hardest,” said Wilkinson, who is also a volunteer firefighter for Syncrude Canada, an oil producer in Fort McMurray.
“When I got to Edmonton I called the fire hall and tried to put my name on the list to get back up there, but they weren’t flying anyone up there and then obviously after we found out that we lost our house it was just too much.”
“It’s hard not to go up there and help, it’s not just about losing your house it’s about helping your brothers…it’s hard,” said Wilkinson, choking back more tears.
After staying with relatives in Fort Saskatchewan for several nights the couple decided they needed to get some peace and quiet and the first place they thought about was Jasper, a place they had visited three times in the past.
“This was the first place that came to mind,” said Wilkinson, referring to Alpine Village where the couple stayed for the next four nights free of charge.
Adding to the stressful situation the couple is getting married in Ontario June 11.
“Our original thoughts were to cancel the wedding because we couldn’t really bear the thought of having to pay for the wedding, but the venue has offered to step up and pay all of our food and all the vendors that I’ve contacted are willing to just use the deposits that we gave as full payments,” said Wilkinson.
“We managed to salvage our wedding bands and luckily my wedding dress was at my mom’s in Ontario, but Chris’s suit is gone,” Woods added.
The couple packed up what little possessions they have and left Jasper on May 11 to try and find a temporary home in Calgary.
“We’re not even going to move in until July, we just want to secure it because it seems like everyone is snatching them up right now,” said Wilkinson, adding once they find a place they’ll head to Ontario for their wedding.
Whether the couple returns to Fort McMurray is still up in the air.
“We didn’t think Fort McMurray would always be our home, but it’s a lot different when it’s a choice or you’re forced to make that decision and I feel like since it’s forced I want to go back and rebuild and I want to show that we’ll get through this,” said Woods.
“It’s just a matter of taking things one step at a time and not trying to figure out everything in one day and that’s a big reason we came to Jasper to slow down and just try and find some ideas and make sense of what happened.”
Paul Clarke
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