Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2016

The AIH Transcript for April 26, 2017

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening, I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight:

CO: A shark never stops moving. And now, Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary has announced he's moving right out of the Conservative leadership race -- and as he explains, it's because he thinks the party is going need a bigger vote.

JD: Six decrees of separation. Even after French judges have given a half-dozen orders for Canadian professor Hassan Diab to be released, he is still in prison -- and his lawyer says it's time for Canada to step in.

CO: For everyone who thought we arrived later, well: tusk, tusk. Archaeologists say the discovery of mastodon bones and rocks proves humans arrived in North America 100 thousand years earlier than once thought -- but our guest isn't quite convinced.

JD: Bursting into flames. When their city was on fire, members of the Fort McMurray Fire Department leaped into action -- and tonight, two of those firefighters join Carol to discuss their book about their time on the front lines.

CO: With a great powwow comes great responsibility. Just five years after an accident that nearly ended her performing career, a teenager from Saddle Lake First Nation has been chosen as a head dancer at one of the largest powwows in the world.

JD: And...ascending order. When a woman somehow ends up stuck on a crane at a Toronto construction site, our guest is called upon to bring her down -- and his successful high-risk rescue justifies him as the top choice.
As It Happens, the Wednesday edition. Radio that assumes somebody who was up there likes him.

[Music]

Part 1: Kevin O'Leary withdraws from Conservative leadership race, crane rescuer, early human activity study

Kevin O’Leary

Guest: Kevin O’Leary

JEFF DOUGLAS: Au revoir, "Mr. Wonderful".
Kevin O'Leary quit the Conservative leadership race this afternoon, saying he was short of support in the province of Quebec. Mr. O'Leary then did his best to bolster his former rival Maxime Bernier at an event they held in Toronto.
Then came the questions about how Mr. O'Leary could support someone who'd been so critical of him until now. Here's his answer.

SOUNDCLIP

KEVIN OLEARY: Oh, he was critical during the campaign. Welcome to politics. Like, we're in a civil war here until we pick a leader and then we coalesce just like mercury coming together. That's exactly what's going to happen.

MAXIME BERNIER: He was my biggest opponent and a strong competitor, you know. I like competition. I like competition in the free market. I like competition of ideas. And we have a nice competition. We had a nice competition and now we are together. Yes. And because I think you argue with a big majority of our platform, that's the only way to bring economic growth in this country. And being sure that Justin Trudeau won't be there in 2019.

KO: I'm not walking anywhere. I'm totally committed to finishing the job. I want Trudeau gone. I will do anything in my power to support him and the party to get rid of Trudeau. The ultimate goal is to leave with him out of power. That's 2019. And what, the best thing I can do is, I've got a massive social media platform. I also can reach lots and lots of young people. Trudeau gave them and promised sunny ways. No sunny ways, just a bare light bulb in their parent's basement where they live because they're unemployed. That's my message to them. We have a better idea.

JD: That was Kevin O'Leary dropping out of the conservative leadership race and throwing his support behind Maxime Bernier this afternoon in Toronto, and we reached Kevin O'Leary in Toronto.

CAROL OFF: Mr. O’Leary, you write in your release that the Conservative Party needs someone who has the best chance of beating Justin Trudeau. When did you realize that you were not that person?

KEVIN OLEARY: I'm a numbers guy and I've been completely, you know, watching the polling, and I've been doing large sample polling, so I have a very low margin of error in what I've been doing. Most sample sets are sort of 2500, I've been doing is as high as 9000. So I was, you know looking at my growth in each of the provinces, very happy with the outcome, and I felt I was very at least a frontrunner for leadership. But what remained problematic for me was the low percentage I was getting in Quebec.

CO: So why did it matter not to have Quebec?

KO: For some reason I just couldn't get traction there. And you know, I'm a pragmatic person. I look at numbers, I look at probabilities. You know clearly, I needed more work, more time perhaps. I got stuck at 12 percent and couldn't grow. I achieved as much as 30 percent in other provinces. So I felt leadership, yes. But a pathway to winning for the party, problematic. You need 30 seats in Quebec to deliver a majority mandate.

CO: No you don’t. Didn't Stephen Harper win a majority with five seats in Quebec?

KO: Yes, he did in a unique time when he had the opportunity to bifurcate those situations with a bloc and the NDP, a situation we don't have now. So again, that's looking at the number. I tore into those numbers into 11. He basically flipped a coin, and was so strategic it landed on its edge and he was in a perfect, unique, once in a lifetime situation. You can't emulate that again. You would need the block to Quebec and the NDP to have a very strong leader, both of which are not guaranteed 15 months from now. So that's the kind of number and detail I was looking at, saying how do I deliver the majority mandate to the Conservative Party. And I can't do it without Quebec.
Quebec is the Florida of Canada. It often determines the federal outcome. Generation after generation, it has that power because of 78 seats.

CO: Well what did you do to try and win the hearts and minds of people in Quebec?

KO: I spent as much time as I could there campaigning, I spend as much time as I could learning French. I spent as much time as I explained to everybody, that I was born there, and I was optimistic at the beginning of the journey that I could move the needle to at least 20 percent. I needed at least a hundred more basis points and I could not move it.

CO: Well what did you do? Just tell us a little bit more what you were doing in Quebec because you skipped the French debates and that that may have hurt you, but did you did you go meet people? Were you hanging out?

KO: I can't. I have a business on Sherbrooke Street. O’Shares. I go there and my family and university there. I’ve got family living there. I was going there as much as I could. Weekends, days . You know, the campaign race requires you to go across the country. Sometimes three cities in a day. I tried to spend as much time as I could.

CO: Is it true you're hanging out at the Orange Julep?

KO: Yes. I love the Orange Julep. It’s where I went when I was a kid at seven years old. It was wonderful, and it tastes the same and the hotdogs are just as good.

CO: Now but, maybe if you had spent more time in Canada people would take any more seriously.

KO: You know yesterday, I'm a global investor. Yesterday, I was sitting in New York City talking about the NAAFA negotiations, speaking to Americans about my country Canada. Who was I doing with that? Doing with that? Freeland in Belgium. She and I, Political opposites, talking to Americans about our country. It's country first.
The fact that I'm a global investor is actually a huge advantage and I'm going to continue to tell Americans who know me well about our country because we are going into a vicious negotiation like we've never seen before.
We're being attacked on software and lumber, on energy, on automotive, on dairy. We have to bring our case forward. And even though I'm you know competing with Freeland, she's our minister, she represents our country, and the two of us talk to Americans for a long time explaining why it was a bad idea.

CO: Then why do you think that Maxime Bernier is the guy who can close those deals? I mean this is the man who wants to trade away our marketing boards.

KO: You know Maxime and I have policies that are practically identical. Our relationship started a year ago at my cottage we met for the first time when he was looking for my support. And I talked to him about if I didn't enter the race, he'd get it. But I did. So we've always had that relationship and I agree with his vision for the country.

CO: Including supply management? You agree with him on supply?

KO: No, I didn't agree on supply management. I want, that was the only one that I wanted to negotiate. So you know 99 percent of the policies we agree on. Supply management, I didn't want to give up. I wanted to negotiate it with, you know, what we were going to end up with Wilbur Ross. because he is attacking us on dairy. And if we're going to give that up, he has to give up his support in Vermont and in Wisconsin. They subsidize dairy there. They have 10 times more milk than we have and I think it would have been a disaster to do that, so I wasn't willing to do that without a negotiation. But that being set aside, Max has a huge advantage. He's from Quebec, I think he can deliver 30 seats. I think supporting him is the right thing to do. And I think the party needs a path to victory. We have to configure ourselves in a way that we have the highest probability to win.

CO: OK but don't forget Maxime Bernier has baggage. Stephen Harper didn't bring him back further than a junior portfolio after he left sensitive documents with a former girlfriend who turned out to have connections with bikers. I mean this is a guy who is carrying a lot, many skeletons in his closet and baggage on his back. Does that not worry you? That this is a guy who may not be able to beat Mr. Trudeau?

KO: You show me a career politician without baggage. You saw me a career businessman without baggage. Show me a person that's been around that long and done as many things as he has, I have. We all have baggage, we all have skeletons. People are looking forward not backwards. Maxime has charisma. He's got personality and he can deliver 30 seats. That's what people are focusing on now.

CO: Do you think that Canada is ready for a libertarian prime minister?

KO: I think we very much are because we've got to make the tent, the Conservative party tent way wider than it is. We have to actually get 40 percent of the people between the ages of 18 and 35 to vote for us and we have to get 30 seats in Quebec. We get those two things, we have a majority mandate.

CO: OK just finally you have said suggested that you'd still perhaps run for a seat and if you did, when you were having this conversation with Mr. Bernier at 1:00 a.m. this morning, as it’s been reported, did you discuss the possibility of running and perhaps becoming Canada's finance minister someday?

KO: We left all the options open. But my most important role will be in the next 15 months is going to speak to young people for Max.

CO: OK no, you’re just tantalizing me with something he said. You left everything open. Did you leave the possibility open that you could run and perhaps –

KO: Yes, I left everything open. I would do anything it takes to get this party majority mandate. Anything. I will work with Max, I'll work with the party. I have worked so hard over the last five months on this. I want to see it through.

CO: Mr. O’Leary, thank you.

KO: Take care, thanks.

JD: Kevin O'Leary bowed out of the conservative leadership race today. We reached him in Toronto.

Crane rescuer

Guest: Rob Wonfor

JD: In the early hours of this morning, a young woman climbed up a crane, about 12 storeys high, in downtown Toronto. For hours, she sat perched on a pulley, suspended by cables, like a swing.
That's where Rob Wonfor came in.
It took two-and-a-half hours to get her down, but just before 9 a.m., the veteran firefighter was able to rappel down with the woman in a harness. She has now been charged with six counts of mischief.
We reached Rob Wonfor in Toronto earlier today.

CO: Rob it's been quite a day.

ROB WONFOR: Yeah it was a day, yeah. There was a lot going on. But that’s what we're not prepared to do and we have to do it. We just go up and say OK here's our problem and we'll do what we can do to get things better for everybody.

CO: And how did you end up being chosen as the person to take on the problem?

RW: Well you know, it's just it was just our shift and I do rope work in my part time business. I’m an arborist. So I'm always climbing tall trees and hanging off ropes. And so the captain said, you know what, you're probably the guy that can monkey it. And I'm a bit of a monkey. I'm not a big heavy guy so I can maneuver around pretty good when I have to.

CO: What did you think when you saw this young woman sitting on the pulley of this crane?

RW: Well, it was unbelievable because for her to climb where I climbed and get to where she got to, I don't know how she did it. And I talked to her about it and she said “I'll tell you later.” So we're going to get together later one day. It was remarkable how she got to that point. I couldn't believe it. Couldn’t’ believe she was actually there.

CO: Well, she’d already been there for some hours so what did you do when you got to the scene?

RW: We had to formulate a plan. We didn't know if we were going to use the crane operator, we're trying to get a hold of him to comment, say what can you do for us. Can you tip this crane down or lower it down?
They weren’t coming in a timely fashion. So we, even if we start to move the crane, we still want to get her in a harness so you know, if the crane shakes she’s not going to fall so, I had ropes and clips that we could us. I had another positioning lanyard tether that could keep it me tight so I could climb. So it's just a slow climb.

CO: And what did you do when you got to the tip, how did you, describe for people how you worked your way down to where she was.

RW: Well after I got to the tip, I had to 9000 point lines tied on me. So I set up a pulley off the very tip, so like a high point for the ropes to go through some pulleys, and then I just lowered down to her position and they stopped the descent.

CO: It is an extraordinary moment that I can see in the video, when they sort of gently plunk you down right beside her, like you're sitting on a bench together. It's just what it was that–

RW: Like we were on a park bench. Yeah it was pretty, it was pretty surreal. I mean it's funny cause you're 150 feet in air, and I said to her “Wow, we’ve got a nice view here”. She said “Yeah, it is nice”. I said, “You’ve got your camera? We should take a picture.” She said “No, I don’t”. I said “Aw, I didn’t bring mine either”.

CO: And were you having that conversation with her? You just have to kind of assess her state of mind?

RW: Yeah, she was very helpful. She was just like a normal person that climbed up there with no issues and just probably shouldn’t have been there. She said “I probably shouldn’t have done this. I just want to get down”.
You know, I didn't ask her why she was there, how she got there. We just you know hooked onto each other and tethered her off and told her what we were going to do. And she was very calm. She was actually a lot cooler than I was. She kept me calm.

CO: And how important was that conversation, just to prepare?

RW: It was huge because I was going up, you know, you have to assess, OK, how volatile is she? Is she going or is she staying? And within a minute I knew she just wanted to get out of there and she was calm Just like, “Yeah, I’ll wait for you”.

CO: Did you fear at any point that she was not going to be there, that she might do something rash? Did you…

RW: Well, you always have that fear. I’ve had a few other calls where I’ve gone down, you know you’re not sure what they're going to do. This girl was cool, cool as a cucumber. I was pretty sure she was going to wait for me. She said she would. I said “OK, that’s all I need to know.” And she waited.

CO: Is that what you said? You said, “Will you wait for me?”

RW: Yeah. I said “Will you wait for me?” She said “Yeah, yeah, no I’ll wait for you.” I said, “It’s going to take me a little bit longer.” And the police were talking to her from the megaphone saying “You know, we're coming.” In a very calm voice you know.

CO: She was wearing high heels you said.

RW: Yeah, she had bigger heels on. She had no gloves. She's just remarkable.

CO: How cold was it up there? What was it?

RW: It was pretty cold yeah. I was pretty hypothermic when I got down. I was pretty cold. She was colder than I was but she was still a trooper. She was helping. She was shaking, but she knew we were trying to get the job done, two of us. More she helped, the quicker we were going to get out of there. Yeah, no, I’d to work with her again for sure. Any kind of rescue.

CO: How did you feel when you saw her being led away in handcuffs?

RW: I know, I wish they wouldn’t have done that. I mean, I really don't think she's a threat at that point. I mean, I don't know why they have to do that. You know, I told her, I said, you know, she was worried about getting in trouble. I said “You know what, we’ll make sure you’re not in big trouble. Not that I can guarantee it. And she said “I’m going to get a big fine.” I said, “You know what, I'll pay the fine. I don't care. I mean, I just want to get you down. If there's a money fine, I'll pay it.” She said, “You don’t have to do that.” I said “No no, that’s OK. This is this is good training for us and we're just, everybody wants to help you and we’re all worried about you. Even though we don’t know you.” This could be my daughter, could be somebody’s friend, could be anybody, right? Just another human that needs help.

CO: What’s the conversation you want to have with her, because you say you want to see her again? What do you want to talk to her about?

RW: I just have to know how she did it. I mean, talk me through it, how long it took her. She should be on the fire department with me with that kind of skill and fearlessness. I mean she be, she'd be excellent. There’s no way I’d climb that the way she did it. Like I don’t think you could pay me enough money to climb that without ropes and harness protection.
And she's very coherent talking and you just, a really nice person. We had a really good time, we were laughing and I gave her a kiss on the cheek a couple times to calm her down. We were good to go.

CO: How are you feeling now?

RW: I'm really tired. Yeah, it's going to hit me later. It was shocking. I've had a couple other rescues before and they’re kind of… you come down from it; you’re like “Holy smokes, that could have been really bad.” You know, so when you when you get them, you just hope they get the help they need for whatever reason. You know, we’ll help you and there’s lots of people down here that love you. We don't know you but we love you because you need help and we’re here for you.

CO: Rob, I really appreciate speaking with you and I'm glad you were there.

RW: Oh no problem. Thanks very much for your time.

CO: Take care.

RW: Alright, you too, bye-bye.

JD: We reached firefighter Rob Wonfor earlier today in Toronto. This morning, he climbed a crane in downtown Toronto to rescue a woman who had been stuck on a pulley suspended from the top for hours. She has been charged with six counts of mischief.

[Music]

Human activity study

Guest: John McNabb

JD: The scientists say their evidence is "incontrovertible." But they realize what they're claiming will sound, to a lot of people, unbelievable.
A new study published in the journal Nature today claims to prove that humans were in North America 130-thousand years ago. Or, 100-thousand years earlier than experts believe.
It is based on an archaeological site in San Diego, containing stone anvils, hammerstones, and mastodon bones. And the way the bones were arranged suggests they did not get there naturally.
If these results were born out, the study would change everything we know about human activity in North America. However, some experts are skeptical. John McNabb is an archaeologist at the University of Southampton in the UK. We reached him in Southampton.

CO: Mr. McNabb, this study is being called an archeology shocker. Are you shocked?

JOHN MCNABB: Yes, I am quite shocked. The claim that's being made is a huge claim that humans are in the Americas 115 thousand years older than most normally accepted so the range of dates. So it is a really big shocker, yes.

CO: Now this was, the site is in San Diego and it was actually uncovered back in 1992. What are they now reporting that they have found at this site that actually might place early humans 130,000 years ago?

JM: Well they found the carcass of a mastodon, which is an elephant-like animal. And the carcass has been re-arranged. The bones also show damage patterns as if they'd been hit by something and there are some cobbles in association with the bones that also have damage patterns on them. Percussion damage and things like that, that they think they were used to hit the bones with. So there's an unnatural set of circumstances surrounding the anatomical character of this Mastodon.

CO: Are there any other explanations as to why the bones are like that or what they found at the site? Is it possibly from natural conditions?

JM: Well that's the argument that the authors of the paper are promoting. They've gone through a series of possible natural explanations until they’d come to the point where they think there's no other explanation other than human interaction with the mastodon carcass. Logically, it's a very good argument to make.

CO: So it looks like there's human activity. They haven't found actual human remains or anything that would actually point to humans having been there. How significant is it that they haven't found that?

JM: Well that's one of the big problems with it. Normally, in butchery events of large mammals in Africa or in Europe of this period and much much older, you get a background scatter of what we call flakes and cores, which is small cobbles which have clearly been struck and turned into stone tools, have diagnostic features on them that makes them very recognizable. And there's nothing like that. The background scatter of stone tool you would expect is simply missing. And that's a really significant absence in terms of the arguments that they're trying to establish. And it's a difficult one to get over as well.

CO: If these are signs of human activity 130,000 years ago, where would those humans have come from?

JM: Well in theory, they’dhave come from eastern Siberia. Presumably, they would have come across the Bering Straits at times of intense cold and glaciations, the sea level drops. So you'd have a land bridge between Eastern Siberia and between Western Alaska. But the period that this site is being dated to at 130,000, is the end of a cold period and the beginning of a warm period. So the sea level will have risen because the ice sheets will have melted, the crossing would be long and difficult. And we think that the sea levels actually at that time, were higher than they are today.

CO: So given that, that doesn't make sense then, that they would have crossed over the land bridge because there wouldn't be a land bridge?

JM: Quite right. So either they came in the cold period before the land bridge was drowned, or they had some ability to cross long expanses of water. That's an argument that's been tried in other parts of the world but has never been quite robustly established.

CO: Well then is it also possible if they have found at this site human activity that's 130,000 years ago, that there still might be even older activity that would allow for another age when there was a land bridge?

JM: Well I think the authors of the paper would like to argue that but the thing is we got absolutely no evidence for this. This is the thing that makes this find so unusual. It's so old and it's so far out there.

CO: And what did the authors say about that? Are they open to questions? And are they absolutely firm that they believe what they have found is human activity 130,000 years ago?

JM: Well they're quite clear that they think their evidence is solid and robust and they you know, invite people to bring their questions and concerns to them. One of the things I certainly would like to see would be other teams of specialists coming to work with the original team and explore things like the damage patterns on the bones. Are they really a product of humans making percussion marks with anvils and hammers? There's a long tradition in Africa and in Europe of looking at butchery and carcas dismemberments events and looking at the damage patterns you see as a result of these.

CO: If this challenges assumptions,and that's what the authors are hoping it does, then does it change how archaeologists look for things, what they're looking for? Does it alter a whole bunch of investigative work?

JM: I don't know how much it will alter in the sense of, you know changing the way we think about things. What I think people do is it will open up some new questions if it's demonstrated to be true. You've got to somehow model humans moving out of Africa and then moving very rapidly across the whole of the Eurasian landmass until they reach Siberia. And I think we have to be asking ourselves well how they move so quickly? What does it mean for modern humans spreading across the globe? And I think it to also explore issues of are there any other kinds of species around before humans arrived which is something I think the authors of the paper do tentatively suggest might be one of the possibilities?

CO: Well we modern humans await these discoveries, Mr. MacNab. It's good to talk to you. Thank you.

JM: You're very welcome. Bye now.

CO: Goodnight.

JB: John McNabb is an archeologist at the University of Southampton and we reached him in Southampton.

Part 2: Hassan Diab, powwow dancer

Hassan Diab

Guest: Don Bayne

JEFF DOUGLAS: A pair of French judges has ordered the release of Ottawa professor Hassan Diab. But he will likely hold off on the celebrations because this is the sixth such order and Professor Diab is still locked up.
The French accuse Professor Diab of murdering 4 people in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue. Canada agreed to extradite Professor Diab, despite a Canadian judge's concerns about the evidence against him.
Now, the lawyer who helped Professor Diab fight that extradition is calling on the Canadian government to step in. We reached Don Bayne in Ottawa.

CAROL OFF: Mr. Bayne, if French counter-terror judges have issued six orders for Hassan Diab to be released, why is he still being held?

DON BAYNE: The French lawyer, William Bourdon, who is the defense lawyer, a very experienced lawyer, says this is unprecedented in France because the investigative judges, and that's the way France investigates through judges, who have been investigating this for years, say the following. “At this stage of the inquiry there exists consistent evidence tending to establish that Hassan Diab was in Beirut in late September early October, 1980.” This is when this bombing happened in Paris. And they set out the corroboration for that. Passport, father's passport. And they go on to cite that in early October, he was writing exams at the University in Beirut. We know this due to witness reports and documents from the Lebanese University confirming that he studied for his exams, sat them in Beirut, and passed them. So they're saying he's innocent.

CO: So if there is, if this is the case, then what evidence did they have? He was extradited from Canada to France to face these charges did they not have evidence to support that extradition?

DB: They had wholly unreliable evidence. Wholly unreliable. They had what they call France uses secret intelligence as evidence. But the judge said the evidence, he described as wholly unreliable, fatally flawed, questionable methods–

CO: This is the Canadian judge we're talking about here–

DB: This is the Canadian judge. But he said the state of Canadian extradition law compels me to commit even in the face of this kind of weak, unreliable evidence.

CO: And but there is, within the law, there should be grounds for prosecution, so why has Hassan Diab have not been prosecuted yet?

DB: Because the French judges, the people who have the responsibility to carry forward the investigation in France, have ruled, after looking into this matter, what I just read to you. That from their judgment, that there is consistent corroborative evidence that this man is innocent.

CO: So why are they holding him? What's behind that?

DB: Mr. Bourdon, the French lawyer, says owes to the political climate in France, which is to say the paranoia and justifiable concern about terrorism. But he asks the question: how can it be that the release of Hassan Diab, whom the investigators say is innocent, how can that threaten French public order, which is what the court of appeal keeps ruling in detaining him that to release him would threaten public order in France?

CO: If he's a terror suspect, what conditions is he being held in in France?

DB: He's in a maximum security prison, about two and a half hours from Paris, in very difficult conditions. He's in a jail cell 22 of 24 hours a day. He has not seen, but once or twice, his son who was born while he was in jail. It's terrible conditions, and more so because he's an innocent man.

CO: But he has been released in the past he's been–

DB: You're right. He was released for years in Canada while the extradition proceedings were going on and he was a model release person.

CO: But has he not demonstrated by that that he's not a flight risk?

DB: I would have thought so. He's respected every and any bail condition that's ever been imposed on him.

CO: The issue I guess is that if the evidence against him is being treated as a security secret, if you can’t find out much of it, is it possible that they do have some proof that he was involved in the bombing in Paris?

DB: No because they described, Ms. Off, the nature of the intelligence. The nature of the intelligence they claim is that in 1999 they received foreign intelligence from an agency from a source they do not know that claimed the person named Hassan Diab was involved in this bombing, and said the bombers came from Spain using their real passports to enter France and then switched to false passports in France. But then Hassan Diab’s passport has no French entry stamp. And so, they changed the intelligence claim six weeks later to say, oh actually it said they used their false passports to enter France so as to remove the proof of his innocence.
Let me add one other factor that makes this even more galling. They have a fingerprint of the man who is the suspect. The French police stopped the mystery man, the false pseudonym Alexander Penedriou, who in Paris, took him into a police station for questioning. And on that statement there's a fingerprint. It is not Hassan Diab.

CO: You have called the Canadian government to help to take some action.What do you think that Ottawa can do?

DB: What know that the government at the highest levels secured the release of a missionary in northern China on charges of espionage for North Korea. Governments express their concern about the plight of their citizens to other countries. And I'm, we're hoping and waiting for the government to protect the security of person of this Canadian citizen.

CO: We will be following this story. Mr. Bayne, I appreciate being with you. Thank you.

DB: And thank you very much for the opportunity to tell this story.

JD: Don Bayne is the Canadian lawyer for Ottawa Professor Hassan Diab. We reached Mr. Bayne in Ottawa.

[Music]

Mini-update: Painting

[Music]

JD: Going once.. going twice... actually, never mind.
Yesterday, we brought you the story of a Dutch masterpiece up for sale in Austria. Bartholomaus van der Helst's Portrait of a Man originally belonged to a Jewish art collector by the name of Adolphe Schloss, but was stolen by Nazi collaborators in 1943. Antoine Comte, a lawyer representing the Schloss family, told us the family did not want money for the painting -- they want the painting.
Now, in Austria, unlike many other European countries, it is not illegal to sell stolen art if it was purchased in good faith. And the painting was scheduled to be auctioned off today. But at the last minute, the current owner -- whose name hasn't been revealed -- withdrew "Portrait of a Man" from the sale.
Now we don't know exactly why the seller changed his mind. But the story did get international attention after which the auction house received several threats, and emails comparing it to the Nazis.
Adolphe Schloss once owned more than 300 paintings. Thus far, less than half of his plundered art has been returned.

[Music]

Powwow dancer

Guests: Tia Wood, Cynthia Jim

JD: Tia Wood was afraid she'd never be able to perform like she used to. But soon, she'll dance on the biggest stage of her career.
Five years ago, Ms. Wood was nearly killed in a car accident. Doctors told her she might not be able to sing or dance again. But this weekend, the 17-year-old will head to the Gathering of Nations Powwow in Alburquerque as a lead dancer. The powwow is one of the largest in the world. And her whole family will be part of her performance.
We reached Tia Wood and her mother, Cynthia Jim, in Edmonton.

CO: Tia, big congratulations.

TIA WOOD: Thank you.

CO: How does it feel to be named as the lead dancer at this powwow?

TW: I feel very honored but I also feel very shocked because I've only just dreamt of getting this kind of position.

CO: Did you know this was possible?

TW: I didn't think so, no.

CO: So how did you react when you heard the news?

TW: I was screaming and everything. I was really excited.

CO: And what does it actually mean, what do you get to do?

TW: Well you have to lead in the dancer at the powwow which is easily over like 2000 people. And you also have to raise money and hold a special, that honors whatever you're passionate about.

CO: And what is it you're passionate about?

TW: Bringing awareness to missing and murdered indigenous women.

CO: And you say you're going to lead these people in, a couple of thousand people. Are they all dancers?

TW: Yes.

CO: Wow. And so are you picturing yourself doing that?

TW: Yeah, kind of feeling nervous.

CO: I understand you be dancing with your mom.

TW: Yes.

CO: And your mum is there. Cynthia, hello.

CYNTHIA JIM: Oh hello.

CO: How did your family react when they heard the news?

CJ: You know, when Tia described to me that she was having a pretty glum day that day. Much like a day like today, you know, clouded over. A quiet day. And her dad walked in with an envelope. “Oh Tia, you have mail from Gathering of Nations.” And her and her friends were at the house. They were joking around saying “Oh my gosh, what if it’s invitation to be head young lady dancer?” And they’d just joked, you know something that the young girls. Dreaming of these huge positions. And they opened up the letter and Tia explained to me she just started screaming in happiness in disbelief because there's only one youth female and one youth male that is chosen for these positions in all across America, U.S. and Canada. So it's really quite an honor.

CO: For this Gathering of Nations. And do you know how Tia was chosen?

CJ: She has had exposure on YouTube and Facebook as a singer. And she would sing country, R&B, powwow songs. And she started to get recognized for that. And also through her older sister who with link in some of her videos to her Facebook and Tia posted some of her own on YouTube and it caught the attention of certain people. So when she came of age, she really started showing signs of a passion for singing, and a newly discovered passion since she could walk, for dancing.

CO: What happens at this event, at Gathering of Nations. This is going to be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico? What goes on in the event?

CJ: In that event, First Nations come from all over the world. We even have, we've witnessed South American indigenous people, Hawaiians, Inuit, I believe even one year there was Russian indigenous people that showed. But mainly indigenous people of what we know as Turtle Island, come from all directions to meet and bring their families, celebrate with food and crafts and culture, and even competition dancing.

CO: And Tia as head lady dancer will lead everyone in. But Tia you also, as you say, you're going to perform. Can you describe the performance, the dance that you will take part in?

TW: It’s old style jingle dance. It’s the original healing dress. It's basically kind of just keeping your feet close to the ground and you slide them. There's really no crazy footwork or anything like that because it's old style.

CO: What do you mean old style?

TW: Usually like contemp dancers, and they do like crazy footwork. But when you old style you just like slide your feet. That’s all.

CO: And what will you be wearing?

TW: A red dress. A red jingle dress.

CO: A red dress. Why have you chosen a red dress?

TW: Because I was inspired by the Red Dress Project. They hang red dresses in public places as a visual reminder of the missing and murdered Indigenous woman.

CO: Will everybody in the dance be wearing a red dress?

TW: Yeah. Whoever’s going to be taking part in my special.

CO: Including your mom.

TW: Yes.

CO: Cynthia you got a red jingle dress?

CJ: Yes I do. It’s one of my favorites. And it was also in respect and acknowledgement of the missing and murdered women. Yes it definitely is. And it exudes power. So when you wear it, you want to induce power to who you are and what you represent. And being indigenous woman, it's really been a journey. The Red Dress symbolizes that power, and dancing with it, and reconnect with the rhythms of our Mother Earth.

CO: I want to ask you both about something that happened about five years ago. And that was that Tia was in a very bad car accident. Is that right about five years ago?

CJ: Yes she was. She was in a life threaten accident that put her on life support at the age of 12. She incurred a collapsed lungs, broken vertebraes, six broken ribs and both sides of her pelvis was broken as well. That was the worst thing that could have ever happened to any of us, to witness our baby you know having to pull through something like that.

CO: Tia, did you worry that you wouldn't sing and dance again?

TW: Yeah, I was really worried. It was probably like the first thing I asked my parents when I was off life support.

CO: How difficult was it to get that back?

TW: It was very difficult. Trying to dance and sing again because I was like [unintelligible] and everything. And my lungs were pretty beat up.

CO: And Cynthia were you worried that she wouldn't?

TW: I was pretty devastated for her. She would be found singing in the car, in the house so much that the other siblings would say “OK that's enough.” But she would go on singing. That was before the accident. And then after, you know, I remember the day that she was communicating with us through an ipad, you know, and the first question she asked was “Am I going to be able to sing and dance again?” Like we all had held back her tears. And I remember that day because it was so heartbreaking.

CO: Tia, will you be thinking about that as the lead lady dancer when you're leading those dancers in that you were able to overcome such a thing?

TW: Yes definitely.

CO: What were you thinking when you walk into that big room?

TW: Just about how grateful I am that I got the opportunity. Cynthia and Tia, I wish you tremendous success and a very very special time with the Gathering of Nations. And thank you both.

CJ: Thank you.

TW: Thank you.

JD: That was Tia Wood and her mom, Cynthia Jim. We reached them in Edmonton. Tia wood has been chosen as one of the lead dancers at the Gathering of Nations powwow which begins this weekend.

[Music]

NFL fitness tracker

JD: Sports fans are obsessed, they’re with statistics. 86-point-4 per cent of people know that. As a result, professional sports leagues seem to generate new statistics every season. And yet, despite the emphasis on precise data, some athletes still seem to believe it's possible to give 110 per cent. But I digress.
The NFL routinely gathers and publishes information on everything from pass completions to rushing yards. And all these numbers enable football fans to have extremely educated, detailed conversations about their teams, and their players, without ever having to discuss their feelings. And now, thanks to a new deal with a fitness tracker, those fans won't just know how many times a given receiver fumbles -- they'll also know how that receiver’s body reacted to those fumbles.
The fitness tracker is called Whoop. The Whoop Strap 2.0 retails for 500 bucks U.S., and measures your heart rate, your heart rate variability, your ambient temperature, and your motion. Also it offers "On/Off Wrist Detection via Capacitive Touch Sensor", which is probably helpful, whatever it is. [b] So if you're an NFL player and you choose to participate in the new Whoop program, you'll own the data the tracker records. And then you'll be able to sell that data, if you want -- thus providing a rich new source of statistics for aficionados to pore over. [b] How's Tom Brady's resting heart rate? What's J.J. Watt's ambient temperature? Is Aaron Rodgers sleeping? All questions that could be answered by this new Whoop deal. It's a dream come true for NFL lovers -- who won't just know if their team is playing with heart, but also its exact rate of heart.

Part 3: Feature interview with authors of "Into the Fire: The Fight to Save Fort McMurray"

Into the Fire

Guests: Jerron Hawley, Graham Hurley

JEFF DOUGLAS: One year ago next week, Fort McMurray was evacuated as a wildfire threatened to consume the city. More than 80,000 people grabbed their belongings and fled as their community burned around them. But some stayed behind, doing what they could to save it.
Jerron Hawley and Graham Hurley are both members of the Fort McMurray Fire Department. For five days last May, they fought the fire that came to be known as "The Beast." Now they -- and their colleague Steve Sackett -- have co-authored a book, containing their astonishing photos and recollections.
The book is called Into the Fire: The Fight to Save Fort McMurray. We spoke to Jerron Hawley and Graham Hurley in our Edmonton studio.

CAROL OFF: Jerron and Graham, welcome to As It Happens.

JERRON HAWLEY: Thank you very much for having us today.

CO: You know these photographs in this book, they're just remarkable. And Graham for you, when you look at them, this has been almost exactly a year ago, do they bring back a lot of memories?

GRAHAM HAWLEY: Yeah absolutely. I think the photographs kind of speak to me they have a way of working nicely with the words to kind of put me back into what I was feeling at the time and kind of the raw emotion and feelings of the exact situation as well.

CO: What are the range of emotions you feel about that fire when you see those photos?

GH: I think everything from you know a bit of sadness to a bit of hopefulness to pride, is a big one. I mean having the opportunity to, like I said numerous times before, dig my heels in and kind of defend my hometown. I mean that was a tremendous feeling and honor and privilege.

CO: And Jerron ,for you, when you look at those photos, a large number of them are yours and they're really extraordinary. I don't know how you managed to take so many images while you were fighting this massive fire. But what does it bring back for you?

JH: Every time you we, you know, personally speaking, I flip through there, it brings you right back to that spot. Although that photo was captured in a still frame, I mean when I looked at the photo it's like me looking at a video. I know exactly where I was and what I was doing in that moment. And the story itself in there does the same thing you know?

CO: And do you actually, it's just not, when you say it's just that there's still photos, they’re static but can you actually not only feel it, can you feel the heat, can you hear the fire? Because I understand that it made an extraordinary sound.

JH: Yeah I'll never forget the sounds. The third co-author, Steve. He mentioned it. We're talking about this on the way down to Edmonton, and he mentioned that you know, the explosions from the propane tanks from the barbecue's, I mean the roar of the fire, the fire was a couple hundred feet high and at some points and you know, you'll never forget that sound. Even if from sitting outside of a fire, outside my house you know, a leisure bonfire. Just the crackles from that you know brings back memories. I mean, not always bad, not always to the point where it's you know getting in that mind for me. It's good too, like it brings you back the positives as well. So…

CO: I want to get to some of that but I just want to get from the one point you realized as residents, not just as firefighters, but as firefighters, that it was serious. Graham you wrote in one of the texts next to a photo you said, you described, the “time to go moment.” Tell us what it felt like when you knew that this was the big one.

GH: Yeah I was actually building a fence in my backyard at the time, and I went down to Rona in the downtown core of Fort McMurray and I was going to go pick up some more fencing supplies. And as I pulled into the parking lot, I sort of became transfixed on what I was seeing across the horizon. I was seeing swaths of pressurized rolling smoke, almost like from a steam engine coming out of the horizon which means the fire is probably large, fast, and close. And the moment when I realized, no one was moving in or out of the Rona a parking lot, everybody was standing still, taking a cell phone video, or just gazing at the horizon, it was for me at that moment, I realized a group of random strangers are feeling this. And I knew at that point I had to go, like go home and get the uniform on.

CO: Now when you went home to get your uniform on, and Jerron, you also had to do it, well, you knew you had to go and get involved in this fire in a big way. And then you begin to describe basically five days in May. Five days in hell, fighting that massive fire and just wanting a break from it. You wanted something to it to turn and it not to keep consuming the city. And so Jerron, what was it like to, I mean if you can characterize something about those five days, fighting that fire, what was it like?

GH: Well typically when we go to a, I don't want to use the term normal, but a house fire, you know, one dwelling, you see progression rapidly. And then once you see that progression, you know, that that means you get a handle on the fire, whereas this one was totally different.
The first day, I mean, it reached three different communities all at once. Beacon Hill, Abasand, and Waterways. And, you know, resources get exhausted quickly just because you know, the speed of the fire and like the dryness of the conditions. I mean when, you said, you know, we were looking for a break. We were looking for, we were looking for a sense of, are we, when are we going to be on the winning side of this fire? When are our efforts are going to be shown? Because you know, we would set up a line to try to stop it. Embers would go over our heads two streets down and start catching on fire. That we’d have to drop everything and then go back and make another line. I mean, extremely frustrating at times. But you know, we just kept battling through it.

CO: And as we, we were covering it of course, here and [unintelligible], what we were learning was that the fire just creates its own environment, its own weather. So even those breaks of waiting, for hearing a forecast that might mean the wind has shifted or there's rain coming or whatever, at one point it didn't even matter, did it Graham? It had created its own environment.

GH: Yeah. Like what will happen is, when things get hot, the surrounding atmosphere kind of changes right? And that can really change wind patterns and that's what really kind of fuels a fire. But it also determines the path that the fire is going to want to travel. Either by you know directly blowing the fire and impinging on the nearby structures, or blowing embers into different directions and they'll land on, you know, say a door mat or a fence or a dirty eaves, and that can start an adjacent neighborhood on fire, you know, four or five blocks away.
I do remember being in the HallONE parking lot, which is downtown Fort McMurray, and looking up at the Canadian flag and it was like, the flag itself couldn't decide which direction it wanted to blow. You know, it would blow north for five seconds, east for two, west for one, then back to north so…

CO: And so in the midst of all this, not only fighting the fire, there was an evacuation order I believe on May 3rd and you began to see those files of cars leaving the city and Jerron, I think at one point you were going door to door looking for, to see if people had left. You saw a notice someone had posted: “Evacuated. May God help us all.” What did you think when you saw that?

JH: I was struck like a deer in headlights. You know that that just took me off for a second. It's like, you know this is real. This is what you see in movies and you know, it definitely you know, for that short amount of time, it definitely had a huge impact on me. But you just had to keep going. You didn't have time to react. You didn't have time to feel, you just had to keep going.
I was blessed to have guys in the department that kept you going. So.

CO: And those guys that you were with I mean, there's great photos of them too. My gosh, they look quite exhausted. Including, there’s one photo, a selfie, Graham, of you, that you went in. You finally got into some washroom where are you get partially cleaned up. You guys were grabbing whatever food you could, whatever water and cleanliness you could find. Whatever relief. And then you took this photo of yourself looking in the mirror. What did you see in that face?

GH: Well yeah it's a shameless selfie, I'll be honest. But to be to be perfectly clear like when we went down to Mac Island, there was kind of just your run of the mill gas station treasures. Like it was granola bars and power bars and energy drinks, just stuff to kind of, to keep you know one level above starving. And I needed to get into just a washroom, splash some water on my face. And as I was hobbling, I kind of looked like a wet cat, you know, hobbling across the floor towards the washroom. And another firefighter must have seen my Fort MacMurray emblem gear that I was wearing, and he kind of looked at me, stopped and he kind of got visibly emotional. And at the time I kind of remember chuckling to myself. So I went to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and I thought you know what? I'll take a selfie of myself and I just kind of stood back and took it. And then I kind of realized like, I was pretty haggard looking. Like you know, I'd had a lot of, I was breathing in a lot of different things, going from… it's weird firefighting. You can go from boiling hot to absolutely soaking wet in a matter of seconds so it does a lot of weird things to kind of like, the internal regulators of your body.

CO: But I saw so much. There was fatigue, emotion, hope, despair. I just, there is so much in your face in that photo. Do you see that yourself or is that something that those of us are looking at you are seeing.

GH: Oh no, I definitely see that in myself. Like you know, I see someone who is a little shocked. I see someone who's a little grizzled. I saw someone who was, you know kind of willing to keep going. But at the same time like, he knew he had his limits too.

CO: We are talking about this book Into the Fire: The Fight to Save Fort McMurray, a firsthand account of battling the beast. And two of the authors, firefighters Jerron Hawley and Graham Hurley, are in our Edmonton studio speaking with us. And I just want to play a clip of tape. This is someone you might actually know, or you know the husband of this is some tape from CBC News Network speaking with Susanne Chaffey, the wife of one of your colleagues Dale Chaffey, a firefighter in Fort Mac at the time. And they asked her in an interview how hard it was to leave him behind as she left the city for safety. And let's just listen to Susanne Chaffey.

SOUNDCLIP

SUSANNE CHAFFEY: It was extremely difficult. We've never been separated for any length of time whatsoever.

CBC NEWS NETWORK: Have you and your husband talked about how you're going to communicate in the hours and days ahead?

SC: We have had very little communication. I did connect with him, texted him at 3:30 this morning. He told me to go back to sleep. So I've been begging him to keep in contact with me at least on an hourly basis, but there have been times where we are not hearing from him for five hours. In one part of our neighborhood, in Abasan, at one point the fire became like tornado-like and they had to run, and they had to dropped their equipment and just get out there. So those are the things that run through my head when I'm not hearing from him.

CO: That with Susanne Chaffey and probably with some emotion that both of you heard from your own significant others and you both write about this in the book and Jerron you were calling Carlene whenever you have a chance. What were those conversations like?

JH: Some of the conversations initially were short, to the point. Carlene and I were expecting our first child. We found out about two weeks prior, and no one else knew except for one of my best friends. So what he did is, took her under the wing and evacuated her safely to the city so I did have a chance to call Carlene, it was just to let her know that I was safe. I was in really really good hands and I've learned that as each day went by. But obviously emotion, you know, I had four other family members here in Fort McMurray that had to evacuate itself, all different stories. So back home in Cape Breton, there was lots of ears on the radio and lots of eyes on TVs.

CO: There's one moment when you are finally going to get some shut-eye in a gymnasium full of cots and you just the people are some of the firefighters are just lying down and they're in the same dirty clothes they've been in for days. And you call Carlene. And well, you're trying to find out what she wants to take from the house at one point. What do you want? You have to ask you that question because you know the house may not be there.

JH: Yeah. our house and Timberlea. There's about 200 meters away from where the fire line stopped. And I guess, she just said you know, just get home safe. I just want you to come home safe. And yeah I mean that, that's a tough pill to swallow when you hear it right? There's, as you guys said earlier there's a ton of emotion that goes through your mind in something like this and that just makes it more real.

CO: Graham, I think it was quite a bit more difficult for you because this was your city and this is, you went to your neighborhood where you played as a kid and your family's house was and you wanted to recover what you could. What did your father want you to find?

GH: It wasn't that he wanted me to find, if I had a chance to get in there before the entire neighborhood was engulfed, it was a picture of his father in a actually during World War II. He was a World War II vet but he was wearing a set of World War 1 uniforms and possibly his medals. But you know, it was just so engulfed, I never had the chance, like so many other people. You know you in those moments, you kind of figure out what's really important, what you really want to hold on to. And unfortunately I wasn't able to do it.

CO: You did take a jar of ashes from the house.

GH: Actually I did that for a couple of the guys I grew up with in Beacon Hill. I have a little, you know, what you would find like a silver dollar in thing of ashes for them.
As far as like belongings that I was able to find in the garage was my dad's table saw blade, and a really weird looking iron thing that I made in like Grade 6.

CO: You wrote at that point, “A sense of failure came over me.” Was that your lowest point?

GH: It was one of my low points I think from a personal perspective, but I had lower points in terms of like fighting the fire, in terms of fatigue. But personally, that was a big low point for me. Obviously, my father would never say that I failed him. It was more just the sense of failure that I had come over me.

CO: Jerron, did you ever fear for your life while you were fighting this fire?

JH: There was times where I was fearing the outcome of what was next. Just the fear of uncertainty. You know that was my personal thing. I was a two year guy on the job. I haven't seen many fires prior to this big one. And as time went on, you know fatigue sets in like Graham said. And you know you're tired, you're working well over what you're normally working and you know it's like, when is it going to stop? It's there was definitely high points and definitely low points. You know, just because the outcome wasn't as climatic as you know some other parts of the city. There was times where you know I feared the most. So.

CO: At one point you were standing on the roof of a building that was nearly bulldozed.

JH: Yeah. That was Graham and I. We were on top of this house to get like a bird's eye view and we actually had a great a great area to start fighting this fire. And what they had to do is they bulldozed the house that was on fire to stop it from spreading. It was about a house and a half away, like the distance, and it was I guess, a once in a lifetime view of that for sure. Pretty incredible.

CO: I'm speaking with Jerron Hawley and Graham Hurley on As It Happens. And we're talking about this remarkable book of photographs and testimonials from their time fighting the fire. It's called Into the Fire: The Fight to Save Fort McMurray, a firsthand account of battling the beast. And I just wanted to play another tape clip I'd like to play. This is Marisa Heath, whom we interviewed during the fire. And just to maybe get you to respond to this. Here's Marisa.

SOUNDCLIP

MARISA HEATH: You know in some parts it was very very close. You know, some people only had about 10 minutes to get out. And you know, I know friends that have lost everything. They only have the stuff that they have on their back. Now that our friends have lost everything, it's heartbreaking because these people are so wonderful, and you know, nobody deserve that. Nobody.
I can't even describe how any of us in Fort McMurray are feeling right now. If we didn't have the people of Alberta that helped us all through it, we never would have gotten through it.

CO: That's Marisa Heath speaking with us on As It Happens, and we heard a lot about this sense of community, even in this, this exodus from the city, people looking at you and the other firefighters hoping that something is retained. But what couldn't be crushed was the spirit in that city, eh Graham?

GH: Yeah actually I totally… what she said resonates with me and from my own perspective, the most important thing she said is like, we couldn't have done it without our provincial or federal and to some extent, a global community. What we did as firefighters in some ways was, it was a significant part but it was a small part. Most people understand this from an evacuation standpoint. Even more people are going to understand this from like a rebuild standpoint. And one of the smartest things I heard from some of the folks at Slave Lake, is they said, you know, like this is, you know, the biggest part of the battle, is what comes after the fire is contained.

CO: And what was the point when you knew that you were winning?

GH: For me it was personally it was Prospect Drive. The initial areas of Fort McMurray that got hit, they got hit so hard and so fast, we were just trying to figure out how to stay ahead of it. And you know, we'd have to like make a small line in the sand and get pushed back, re-org, regroup, repeat. But Prospect for me was the first time that it felt like we kind of owned the city. It was the time where we were able to stand back up, swing back, and kind of OK, we're starting to get a handle on what's happening.

CO: How many days into fighting the fire was it at that point?

GH: Ah, Jerron?

JH: I'm bad with the days. I know things by events.

GH: I’m going to say Prospect was either night two or three.

CO: And so you finally felt that maybe you were going to tame this beast.

JH: Yeah I mean our leaders, are captains, battalion chiefs, they made some pretty big decisions that you know, basically put a stop to that fire coming at coming directly at Prospect. Prospect’s the beginning point, and the most northern tip of Timberlea. And when it was coming back in towards Timberlea and Thickwood, it could have had a lot more devastating outcomes.

CO: How did you feel emotionally at that point when you knew that maybe you were going to win? Well you always believed you would be, but you knew you were going to.

JH: It was. I say it many times, proud. I mean you know you're… you're accomplishing something essentially for the first time. You know, our city’s never seen anything like this before. And the fact that you're a part of something that made a change is, you know, remarkable and something I'll take for the rest of my life. You know, when you take those experiences, those positive experiences I keep saying and you just keep going forward with it.

CO: When you finally got a break and got some time down and you both wanted to find people that you loved and that you hadn't seen, and Graham, you went to find Sarah. Can you tell us about that?

GH: Yeah. How that kind of all started for me was, my shift was the first shift to kind of get out, because we got sent back to our normal shifts so we were the first to hit our days off. And one of the co-authors of the book, outside of the house he was renting off another member on the department that burned down, his truck was on the outside of that house. Now I used his truck when it actually had like scorch marks on the side, to drive straight down to Calgary after this week and basically find Sarah and have a very serious talk with her and more or less proposed to her.

CO: You said you had, you got you got to the door where you knew Sarah was and a very beautiful woman opened the door and you had a question for her. What was the question?

GH: I just asked her if she'd marry me. You know it was, I hit a point. One of the points Jerron alluded to earlier, there was a moment for us as a crew, kind of downtown, where we were feeling it. It was one of those moments where it was so visually overwhelming and we were so exhausted. We were starting to get a little scared. And it was in that moment for me that I kind of figured like the next time I saw Sarah,I needed to make this a more permanent thing. Like you know we had in some ways, we you know, we had a kid together, we shared a home together, but in that moment for me, it just felt like it was something I had to do. And that drive down, I'll never forget. I mean I've had lots of drives on highway 63. But to be the only person on the highway to drive through you know scattered fire for the first 20 minutes outside of town and not see anybody it was, I'll never forget that.

CO: And Jerron, you finally saw Carlene again. You also went back to Cape Breton to see your family and they were very worried about you, weren’t they?

JH: Absolutely. You know, I come from a family of seven. You know you have a lot of support just from internal family members, so when we pulled into Port Hood, a small town where I grew up, they had the garage set up, and my mother when I was a child I always had balloons up on the power poles for my birthday. And that's what they did this time. It was a celebration just to have all the family together. And they set it up and I think just so Carlene was right at the front door. So that's the one that I wanted to see the most. And you know that's the love of my life right? So once I walk through the door, my mother my father and all my brothers and sisters, and sisters in laws, and nieces and nephews, and my golden retriever. So I mean, the community in itself as well. I mean, just take a second just to elaborate on that too Carol, I'm allowed to, is just the support that we had you know, emotionally, physically, everything in this fire was absolutely incredible. And just to talk about you know the residents of Fort McMurray too, I mean personally all the people from Route 19 that live in Fort McMurray now, the ones that they went back and they took an article of clothing from their house and they all joined it together and they made my wife and I a quilt from t-shirts from the house that you know they said that the fire department and the we were a part of that we saved, and they gave that to me as a gift. And you know, that, when they came to the house and delivered it to me I had to give myself a stern punch to the stomach just to hold everything in because it was pretty emotional right. So incredible.

CO: And you’ve had your baby.

JH: Yeah. Beautiful nine pound, six ounce baby boy with a lot of a lot of hair, Rod Stewart hair.

CO: What do you want people to take away from this book when he looks at it and read it?

GH: I think what I want people number one for the citizens of Fort McMurray, know that we tried, know that we did our best. This is just our story. This is just one small perspective of the fire. We can't reiterate enough for the process operators that were stuck out at Syncrude, shutting that plant down for the first time yo your water truck drivers. It's hard to include all that into our story. But we can't thank you enough. And as far as the whole process goes, like this is the new normal now. There's going to be highs there's going to be lows, and it's just, even on the days that we don't feel like coming together and rebuilding the city, we have to and we want this book to kind of give some closure to the actual fight that happened.

CO: Has it helped you with your own trauma from the whole thing?

JH: Yeah, like it definitely got me through some of my lows. Sometimes it was the cause of some of my lows because you're constantly having to revisit. I mean, that's just the process. It's not a, you know, clear cut and dry process. But overall, like it's been a good thing. And every day, you know, you just you just keep swinging, you get a little better, you get a little stronger and things get a little brighter.

CO: And Jerron, did this book do for you what do you want it to do for others?

JH: I think the three of us talked about this too, like the beginning stages of this book. And Steve mentioned it brings the puzzle pieces back together. When we initially tackled this book, what I asked the guys to do, was to write their own stories down start to finish. I said, if we have a story that matches, that's credibility. If we have a story that lines up with one another, that's the truth. If we don't, we have a problem. We can't go forward with that. And when we mixed all three stories together, it was three sets of eyes looking at the same fire. And that's where we are today.
I mean you know we, our book is hopefully going to make people realize where they were at that time. And you know, bring them back in the positive sense of things. I mean, people can look back on any negative situation, or any situation in the negative. And what we try to do is bring out the positive. I mean, the whole country came together, the whole city, the provinces. This is internationally known. I mean it's it was a large event, and we got to take away from it. And I think the positive side of the positive side of it is the way to go.

CO: Jerron Hawley, Graham Hurley, thank you both. This is a fascinating book, amazing photos and your firsthand accounts of battling the beast. Thank you both.

JH: Thank you very much, Carol.

GH: Thank you for having us.

JD: Jerron Hawley and Graham Hurley are both members of the Fort McMurray Fire Department, and co-authors of Into the Fire: The Fight to Save Fort McMurray along with Steve Sackett. They were in our Edmonton studio. Into the Fire is published by McClelland and Stewart, and you will find more on this on our website, cbc.ca/aih.

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

April 26, 2017 episode transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode