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The Current Transcript for May 4, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

So, folks, here's a video. I tried, I tried. Pretty sad to see what's all around me. That sprinkler is going in all directions, the blaze is still holding its own. But it's all around. Not sure how much longer I can keep it up. But those that know me know I'm going to do my best. So here it goes, but I don't like seeing much down there. Anyway, time out. Love you all.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Wayne McGrath posted that devastating video on Facebook yesterday. The fire advancing on his Fort McMurray home, consuming his neighbourhood. No one has seen Fort McMurray like this: a wildfire out of control, creating panic with its sheer size and speed. An entire city evacuated as a day darkened by thick smoke turned into night.

SOUNDCLIP

[Teary] So we lost everything now.

AMT: We are on that story today. A look at what that fire has done, what the situation is now. We will hear the stories of those who got away and don't know what is left behind. Also today, if the Inuit want to hang onto their traditional indigenous culture, does that mean they cannot make money at the same time?

SOUNDCLIP

I hear from many people online say, "oh, I'm only against commercial seal hunting, I have no problem with Inuit subsistence seal hunting." I disagree with the idea that we don't have the right to make a profit like anyone else.

AMT: Filmmaker Alethea Arniquq-Baril turns her lens on the fight over the sealing industry, arguing that the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic are collateral damage in the powerful animal rights fight against sealing. The story behind the Angry Inuk in an hour. But we begin with Fort McMurray. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Fort McMurray evacuees scramble to safety as fire destroys homes

Guests: Briar Stewart, Darby Allen, Jeff Peddle, Kim Clemens, Dale Bendfeld, Sarah MacDonald, Suk Sandhu, Chris Vandenbreekel

SOUNDCLIP

The heat is just absolutely indescribable right now.

[Distant sirens]

So Abasand and Grayling Terrace and Centennial Park are on fire. It has not reached downtown Fort McMurray yet, but we'll keep you updated.

AMT: And it did reach downtown Fort McMurray. That was the voice of Vincent McDermott, a reporter for the Fort McMurray Today newspaper driving close to the flames, as you can hear. Little did he know at the time it would become the largest fire evacuation in Alberta history. The word came out of nowhere yesterday afternoon in Fort McMurray, Alberta: get out. Wildfires on the edge of town had blown in on a hot, dry wind and soaring temperatures. They jumped Highway 63, raged into the city of 83,000 people. As you've been hearing on the news, residents have fled after a mandatory evacuation order was issued for the entire city. Today, forestry officials warn that the worst of the fire is not over. The temperatures are high, the winds are strong. Right now, I'm joined by CBC reporter Briar Stewart. She's on the south side of the city. Hi, Briar.

BRIAR STEWART: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: What are you seeing now?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, where I am, just to set the scene, here, is I’m on the south side of the city outside a large fire hall. And this is basically the command centre for the operations here. And we spent the night here in the parking lot, in our vehicle, and we certainly weren't the only ones. There's a lot of vehicles here, and it seems that a lot of residents that weren't quite sure where to go decided to stick close to here in their cars, as well. There are a couple RVs here, and they're all starting to get up now and making the shuffle into the fire hall to use the bathroom. But from where I am right here, you can see the smoke continuing to waft over the sky, it's now sunrise, and there is a lot of smoke, but it's certainly not like we saw yesterday where it was that thick, black, heavy smoke that really just covered the entire sky. You know, there's less smoke this morning. That is to be expected, because that's what usually happens. The smoke dies down overnight, and then it starts to rise during the day. Throughout the night, I should mention that it was quite a busy place around here. Because in addition to the 150 firefighters that are on the fire, there was the number of vehicles and trucks and equipment that came up here throughout the night. We saw equipment from Lac la Biche, which is a city about an hour and a half, two hours away. So we know that officials here had put out the call for more help, and that did begin to arrive overnight.

AMT: And people were told to leave. Where did they go, Briar?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, it was such a panic, and a really chaotic situation for people. And where they left really depended on where they were situated in the city. So they were in the north end of the city, if they were up the hill on the other side of the bridge, they went north. And so going north means heading up toward Syncrude and Suncor, those oil sands operations. So there were a number of lodges, essentially work camps, where workers day when they're working in the oil sands, that were made available. And they quickly began to fill up. So we know that about 17,000 people headed north, and officials, from my understanding, are still trying to find accommodation for all of them. They've asked oil sands companies that if they have workers in some of these work camps, and they're not from the Fort McMurray area, could they please send them home so the space can be made available. And I have to say, while of this chaos is going on, and people are trying to get on the road, a lot of people didn't have gas. Motorists were stranded, the RCMP were going around with jerry cans helping people basically make it on their way. You have all of this going on, and in the midst of this, there are actually two different evacuees that gave birth at one of the temporary accommodations north of Fort McMurray.

AMT: Oh my goodness.

BRIAR STEWART: So it just goes to show you, it can be the most chaotic situation, and then you have this going on, as well. But we understand they're doing very well.

AMT: Okay, and while they would have normally gone to the hospital, where is the hospital, what's going on there? They evacuated the patients from the hospital?

BRIAR STEWART: Yes, they did. They did that yesterday, and it's my understanding that they have now been airlifted out to other facilities. So that that part of it's going on, and then of course, the other thing you have to remember is a lot of people did get in their trucks in their cars and left, but there would be some people without vehicles or maybe some people that are living on their own that are elderly and frail and can't make their way out. So that's what police have been doing, is they've been going neighborhood to neighborhood, door to door.

AMT: And I’m just wondering about what you're hearing, then, about what kind of devastation is already, they're already able to see as they go door to door?

BRIAR STEWART: Right. We are starting to get a sense of the scale of it, and being here at this fire hall, there's been a lot of people that have been coming over the last 12 hours and sharing what they saw in the community. And people have a certain idea of, okay, well this street was burning, and this street was burning, we know the Denny's burned, we know the Super 8 burned. But this morning, what officials did is they put out-- they haven't released an exact number of damaged properties yet, but they put out a list showing which neighborhoods were the worst hit. So for instance, Beacon Hill, which is a neighborhood, it's an older neighborhood in Fort McMurray, there's about 2,000 permanent residents that live there. Officials say that 80 per cent of the structures there have been destroyed. But I mean, we're easily talking about hundreds of hundreds of homes.

AMT: So people would have lost everything.

BRIAR STEWART: They would have. And you know, I was speaking with a gentleman last night who, you know, like so many, was just absolutely surprised by how quickly the fire spread. And he actually had worked the night shift, so he was sleeping during the day. So he didn't really understand what was going on, and somebody started banging on his door late in the afternoon. Banging, banging, and it was his neighbor. And he thought his neighbor was going to break down his door. And it was his neighbor who was basically responsible for getting him out. He was saying as he drove away, he saw in his rear view mirror his properties catching on fire: he owned three properties on the street. So as he was driving towards Edmonton, I was talking to him on his phone, and what he was saying was that yeah, basically, I know that I don't have homes to return to.

AMT: And you know, when you think about all of the blows Alberta has been dealt, especially around the Fort Mac area, because of the oil price issue, and so many other things, to see this.

BRIAR STEWART: And it is, it has been a really tough time for this community. And you've had a lot of people who have lost their jobs, you've had people who were living in this community and have left to go back home, because things have gotten so bad. But nobody expected anything like this. And when I spoke to the fire chief, he said at the outset of yesterday, they knew there was going to be challenges. It was hot, it was dry, it was windy. But never, never did he think it was going to get to the state that it got to. And speaking to him, he was very emotional and he talked about how devastating it was for him, and how this is the worst day for him in his career. And I absolutely felt that he was very choked up, and just overwhelmed by all that had happened.

AMT: It's such a tragedy. Briar Stewart, thank you for your work today.

BRIAR STEWART: You're welcome.

AMT: Briar Stewart is on the south side of Fort McMurray, she's a CBC reporter based out of Edmonton, in Fort McMurray covering this. I am joined by the regional fire chief and director of emergency management for the region of Wood Buffalo. Fire Chief Darby Allen, hello.

DARBY ALLEN: Hello, good morning.

AMT: What can you tell us, first about safety, about residents? Has anyone been left behind, anyone needed rescuing?

DARBY ALLEN: We've had… I wouldn't deem rescues, but we've found what we deem a lot of stragglers overnight. People that were either unsure or didn't know where to go, or we literally found people walking around town. And RCMP officers or firefighters picked those people up, we put them in some temporary accommodation, and then once we had a bus full of about 40, we shipped them south. So our main goal has been to get the people out of here, and we think we've achieved that. I'm not saying that there aren't a few people still holed in and trying to hang in there for whatever reason, but at the end of the day, there's a mandatory evacuation on for the whole of Fort McMurray.

AMT: And you've then had people in there trying to get those people out, and they've been seeing the devastation. Can you tell us, how bad is it?

DARBY ALLEN: It's significant. You know, we've got some communities that have lost half the homes. So it's devastating. We've still got a lot of buildings standing. We're still here, we're still fighting. We've got people who are still here, that are continuing to work and do their very best, but the, you know, this community will never be the same with that regard. But it's a strong community, it will come back. And there's certainly something to be proud of, and we are proud so far that we haven't had any fatalities or indeed anybody that's injured. So we consider that we have success. And we know we're in for another rough day, but we're going to keep going, and we're going to get the job done.

AMT: And can you tell me a little bit more about, you know it's a rough day, what do you have ahead of you? What do you know you're up against?

DARBY ALLEN: Well, we know we're up against first of all, the weather. The weather's going to be about 30 degrees and the winds are gusting. We know that we've currently got, near to the fire at night, wild land fire kind of kind of goes to sleep, and then it gets reenergized during the day. So later on this afternoon, or early on towards late this afternoon, it will be roaring again. Yesterday's fire traveled 15 miles, so it comes with speed and it comes with ferocity and we're expecting another day like that today. So the good news is that we think a lot of it is already gone through, so it'll be a matter of forestry trying to battle the stuff that's still around the city or heading into the city. And then, you know, we'll... the good thing today is we know that there aren't people here. Our main concern yesterday was people, but obviously, we want to protect structures, too. So it's going to be another arduous day. And you know, we're going to we're going to be here for a while. So we're just getting ready. Well, not getting ready, we're doing it, but we're ready for that. We're here, and we're going to be fighting hard.

AMT: Have you seen anything like this before?

DARBY ALLEN: I've never had experience with this type of situation before. One of my members who's a direct report in here, he's had some experience in B.C. with wild land fires. I mean, I've done wild land firefighting, but I've never ran an incident of this magnitude with this much devastation. So at the end of the day, it's about keeping the people safe and that's what we've done so far. And that's what we will try and continue to do.

AMT: This speed in the ferocity of this fire was really unpredictable, eh?

DARBY ALLEN: It is unpredictable. I mean, there are many aspects, there's a whole fire science around wild land fires, but at the end of the day, it is Mother Nature and it is unpredictable. And it's not just the weather, you know, it's the type of fire load. And fortunately or unfortunately, we live in the middle of the borealis forest, and that is prime burning stuff. And it goes like crazy. So you know, once it starts crowning, it'll go quicker than you can run, easily. So that's challenging.

AMT: And do you, you have people in lodges about 20 kilometres north. Do you anticipate that it could rage further to where people are?

DARBY ALLEN: There is a potential. It's a little bit more further north than that, I think it's around 48. But there is the potential the fire could go up that way, so we're challenged with that, too. We wanted to get them somewhere safe yesterday, but, you know, later on today, is that still going to be safe? So we're already working on plans of either flying them out of there or bussing them out of there. We're challenged. You know, some people took their own vehicles. Well now, we don't have any fuel, so they can't drive out of there. We don't want them getting stuck on the highway. So there's a whole myriad of issues that we're dealing with, and our job is to come up with the best plan and keep the people safe.

AMT: The Prime Minister will update assistance to Fort McMurray later today. What do you need?

DARBY ALLEN: We've already made some requests for assistance to the province. We're certainly going to need gas, we're certainly going to need food. Apparently, I have to go because the time is going to cut out on the call, ma'am.

AMT: Okay, well, thank you for taking the time, sir.

DARBY ALLEN: Okay, thank you very much.

AMT: Bye bye.

DARBY ALLEN: Bye bye.

AMT: That is Darby Allen, regional fire chief and director of emergency management for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo. Well, as you've been hearing, tens of thousands of people found themselves escaping the fast moving fire. Two of them are on the line with us right now. Jeff Peddle lives in downtown Fort McMurray, where he manages a 500-unit apartment building. Kim Clemens had to leave her own condo quickly yesterday afternoon. Hi, Jeff. Hi, Kim.

KIM CLEMENS: Hi.

JEFF PEDDLE: Hi, how are you doing?

AMT: Well, I’m wondering how you're doing. Did you even get any sleep last night?

JEFF PEDDLE: You know, I didn't get no sleep last night. It was certainly a long night, and when we left Fort McMurray, I took three cars, 11 people that didn't have rides, so made sure they're all tucked in and went to Fort McKay. [indistinct] band council, and as you can imagine, with so many people leaving Fort McMurray, the camps filled up very quick. So we're just going to wait to see what happens today.

AMT: So, Jeff, where were you when you realized you had to get out? What was going on around you?

JEFF PEDDLE: Earlier that day, I said we'd better get an evacuation plan in place for the buildings, just in case. And everybody thought it was kind of, I guess, premature because we're in downtown, and we're kind of safe. And I guess within probably around two hours, like, when I looked up, and our lights were on in the parking lot in the daytime, so that's how much smoke and black cloud came in. And then you could see the flames and the wall of fire over the hill, which is absolutely crazy seeing that. So at that time, we just went door to door and started to get every, get all the residents out. And once we got all the residents out, anybody that was left in the building, we just took with us. We have a restaurant, we emptied the restaurant of all the food and beverages, and we headed north.

AMT: What were you thinking at the time? You must have been in a panic.

JEFF PEDDLE: No. [Chuckles] No, you know, I knew we were certainly heading to safety, and for me, keeping a cool head was a big part of it, because I had a mother and her two daughters, a lot of people with us, that were probably a little bit more panicked. So you know, I knew we were going to go to safety. I guess, a lot of it was just the uncertainly and the unknown factor of what was going to be left and what was going to happen to them.

AMT: Kim, when did you realize the fire had become really serious? Where were you, what were you doing?

KIM CLEMENS: I had just woken up from a nap, and I was on my balcony at 1:00, and everything seemed to look fine. And my boyfriend was sleeping, he had just gotten off night shift, so he was still sleeping, and luckily, I only slept for about an hour and I woke up to go back on my balcony and there was flames all around us. And I just raced back in and woke him up and told him we had to go. That was it. I did panic; I was in a complete panic. We were on the fifth floor of our apartment building, and I wanted out, like, now. So yeah, we packed. We didn't even really have a chance to pack. I have six guinea pigs and a dog, and so we grabbed the cages for the guinea pigs, and were running down to the parking lot with those and everybody in our parking lot was just screaming and hollering on their cell phones and throwing things in their vehicles. And by the time I went back up to get my dog, the building had gone dark. And that was really scary, and I couldn't use the elevator, I had to run up the five flights to go get my dog. And I just grabbed my dog and my id and I took off. And we got in the car and we started to head on to Gregoire Drive, which is where it was really starting. And we couldn't get out. Nobody would let us out. Finally, somebody did let us out, and I was really in a panic then, because I wanted to get on the road. And finally, someone let us out, and we just crawled and crawled and crawled until we could get to Highway 63.

AMT: And what was Highway 63 like as you drove out?

KIM CLEMENS: Really, really, really busy. The people were going, the people were panicking, I think they didn't know what they were going to do. Some people were stopping, we couldn't understand why, and I assume now that it's because they didn't have enough gas that they were stopping and pulling over him. And we stopped at Wandering River for a bite to eat and pull ourselves together a little bit, to figure out what in the heck had just happened. And there was people around crying and really, really upset, and we still don't know for sure if our house is still there, either.

AMT: And where are you now?

KIM CLEMENS: We're in Edmonton; we're at the Ramada Inn in Edmonton. All the traffic that was with us, we had all just got through when it jumped the highway and started to burn over in our area, and they had just said they just closed 63 and 81. So we would have been, like, stuck and having to go north and towards the camps, which was even worse.

JEFF PEDDLE: You would have had to go with me. [Chuckles]

AMT: Jeff, you went the other way, eh?

KIM CLEMENS: Yeah, I would have had to head north.

JEFF PEDDLE: Yeah, we headed north, we had to go north. Both lanes were full of traffic going out and people driving up the medians, so it was definitely a bit of panic and despair. And there's only so many camps, so when you're take, you know, 15, 18 thousand people and put them this way, so, that's why a lot of people are sleeping in their vehicles and stuff. Because everything filled up pretty quick. It was insane to see it come up highway, to be driving by flames and stuff was, to me, was absolutely insane, just to see that and witness that was crazy. Like nothing you'll ever see in your lifetime.

AMT: Well it's-- It's good to know that you did get out. Thank you for sharing your story with us. It's just such a tragedy. We'll continue to follow all of this, but Jeff Peddle, Kim Clemens, good to talk to you today.

KIM CLEMENS: Thank you very much.

JEFF PEDDLE: Thanks, have a good day.

AMT: Jeff Peddle, Kim Clemens, both had to flee Fort McMurray yesterday as the fire raged around them.

SOUNDCLIP

Really, the smoke and the heat is just, at this point, just unbelievable. Nobody is entering Fort McMurray, as you can see right now. The only people trying to get in are fire fighters. We’re entering a wall of black smoke.

AMT: Reporters yesterday confronting the wall of flame and smoke that forced the evacuation of an entire city. If you're just joining us we've been talking to people who realized suddenly that they had to get out. In half an hour on a story in the high Arctic, but right now we return to Fort McMurray.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I would say it's been [clears throat] it’s been the worst day of my career.

VOICE 2: Well, here we are leaving the roundabout.

[siren blaring]

VOICE 3: Getting out of town just in time.

VOICE 4: Getting the eff out of Dodge. I can feel the heat here. This is insane. Oh, you can feel the heat.

VOICE 5: Our focus is completely and entirely right now on ensuring the safety of people, of getting them out of the city, and ensuring that they are safe and secure.

VOICE 6: It's not fair. They didn't even let us take our things when we asked them. So, we lost everything now. We only have what we have on our backs.

AMT: And help has been pouring in to this city with emergency workers arriving from Lac la Biche, Edmonton, Calgary. Residents have followed evacuation orders, but police officers are combing through the subdivisions to see if anyone has been left behind. Dale Bendfeld is the acting director of Community Services and Policing for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo and he is in the regional emergency operations centre in Fort McMurray. Hi, Mr, Bendfeld.

DALE BENDFELD: Good morning.

AMT: Just what can you tell me? How bad does it look?

DALE BENDFELD: Well, first I will tell the country, Fort McMurray is still here and we're still fighting. We spent the evening with the cooler temperatures in the wind down to do an assessment of all these subdivisions. We have a variety of different types of damage in the different areas, but, again, today is not going to work with us. It’s going to be another hot day and the winds are not being favourable.

AMT: And you've sent some people in to try to make sure that people have actually gotten out, am I right?

DALE BENDFELD: That is correct. Throughout this entire event we've had 250 fire fighters involved, fighting the actual fire, 150 police and peace officers that have been working in each and every community to ensure life and ensure we pick up everybody that we could in every location.

AMT: And give me a sense of how dangerous that is, because you have had to pull everyone out of the city because the flames reaching as far as the downtown.

DALE BENDFELD: That's correct. I mean, the fire was-- It's one of the hardest days of my professional career yesterday watching the fire grow on itself and start consuming and changing direction on a minute-by-minute basis. Officers and firemen did an extraordinary job. Citizens were exemplary in helping us to ensure that their neighbours and everybody else got out safely. And that is our biggest success yesterday, that we evacuated this city and we no injuries.

AMT: It has to be a hard break even before you know how much damage there is.

DALE BENDFELD: That is correct. It was a very quick executive action because the winds picked up and we had a probably a window of less than three hours to get the entire town in phased evacuation. And either north or south of the city, they’re all out now.

AMT: Yeah, you say it's the hardest day of your professional life. I'm guessing you've never seen something like this.

DALE BENDFELD: I have as a soldier and then as a police officer with the RCMP. The last fire I was engaged with was Barriere and Kelowna back in 2003 in BC.

AMT: Okay. And so this happened quickly with a shift in the winds?

DALE BENDFELD: It did. Like, right now the winds remain moderately calm, but by late morning they start picking up and by 3:00 in the afternoon, which is, again, anticipated to be gusty and they change direction.

AMT: And you're at the command centre, am I right?

DALE BENDFELD: That is correct.

AMT: And so what are the kinds of things that you have to be concerning yourself with today. As the day goes on, what are the areas that you have to be on top of?

DALE BENDFELD: Okay, our three priorities that I have a set out today is life. Life is that we're going to be working to ensure everybody-- We're going to go to every community, every subdivision and confirm that everybody is out of those areas. We have to secure some critical infrastructure, that being Highway 63 which allows us to get further reinforcements and equipment into us. And then some of the other critical pieces that support us – telephones, power, gas - that allow us to continue to fight to keep this city.

AMT: I understand there will also be help coming from the military?

DALE BENDFELD: We have been working with the provincial operation centre who is beginning the process to get them engaged, yes.

AMT: Okay. But as you speak now, the fire is still going?

DALE BENDFELD: Yes, the fires continued to burn right over night. We've had the opportunity-- It did quiet down. So we were able to knock down a number of the fires that were threatening houses. But the spot fires continue to be a problem because with the wind the embers are being pushed further into some of the neighbourhoods and with the grass being so dry in the winter that we had with a low snow pack and a hot dry spring they are easily catching fire now.

AMT: How are you actually fighting those fires? What do you do?

DALE BENDFELD: Well, I mean, the first type is, of course, if it's out in the Boreal Forest that surrounds Fort McMurray, that is the job of the Alberta Forestry and they are working with their air tankers. And their ground forces there. We are working in the neighbourhoods with teams that go around looking for spot fires or identifying where there's going to be the interface fires and then bringing our equipment to bear on it.

AMT: And you've got equipment now coming in from other cities? Fire trucks.

DALE BENDFELD: Yes, from across Alberta right now and we are getting calls to volunteer to come from across Canada.

AMT: And so that's why you say that highway 63 becomes really crucial because you’ve got to get those trucks in there.

DALE BENDFELD: That is correct.

AMT: And we heard that people were running out of gas, that was an explosion of one gas station. How do you even keep those trucks fuelled in a time like this?

DALE BENDFELD: Well, we're fortunate as being an industry based town that we do have access to businesses that still hold those type of things for their fleets out at camps and at site. They hold quantities of that type of material which we’re tapping into. And then were also utilizing anything that we can get our hands onto right now.

AMT: And you're going around to make sure that nobody has been left behind and you’re assessing damage. The people who have left, how will they be able to find out about their own homes, their neighbourhoods?

DALE BENDFELD: We haven't got to that part yet. Right now, our priority was a life and limb and getting everybody out of the danger zone into safe zones. We’re just doing the assessment now and then we'll work towards the reporting and the reconstruction.

AMT: How many people are around you right now?

DALE BENDFELD: In the emergency operations centre, I have approximately 26 people here.

AMT: And you've been going on night?

DALE BENDFELD: We've been going since Sunday afternoon.

AMT: What do you want us to know and the rest of the country?

DALE BENDFELD: As I said before, Fort McMurray is still fighting and we’ll still be here tomorrow.

AMT: Okay. Well, I'll let you go. You have a lot of work to do. Mr. Bendfeld, thank you for taking the time.

DALE BENDFELD: Okay. Thank you very much.

AMT: Dale Bendfeld, acting director of community services and policing for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo. He's the regional emergency operations centre in Fort Mac. Tha’s where we reached him. Sarah MacDonald is on the phone. She's a resident of Fort McMurray. We've reached her on the highway. Hello, Sarah.

SARAH MACDONALD: Hi, how are you?

AMT: Well, I’m okay, but where are you?

SARAH MACDONALD: We just actually made it to our destination here in Beaumont. So, we've started unpacking and kind of trying to regroup.

AMT: And where is Beaumont in relation to Fort Mac?

SARAH MACDONALD: It's about five hours south. It’s just outside of Edmonton.

AMT: So, where were you when you realized you had to get out?

SARAH MACDONALD: We were at home. We have a house in Thickwood. My sister actually had come over after work. And we were waiting to hear what was happening and then all of a sudden it was mandatory. Get out. And we grabbed what we could and we had a few things ready and we got in the car.

AMT: And what did you see?

SARAH MACDONALD: This morning when or-- This morning, I’ve been up since then. Yesterday morning, we got up and it was clear and it seemed like everything was going to get better and then all of a sudden in the afternoon the smoke just started kind of pouring into our neighbourhood. And then once we got into the vehicle and we were in gridlock, that's when we started to see the flames actually behind Fort McMurray near where the golf course caught on fire.

AMT: And what were you thinking? What was going through your mind?

SARAH MACDONALD: It was just completely surreal. I mean, we didn't expect it and then all of a sudden it was right there and it was in our faces and I didn't really know what to think. I've never seen anything like it and I mean, I hope I never do again. But that's pretty much how the only way to describe it, surreal.

AMT: And how many of you were there in the car, then, trying to get out?

SARAH MACDONALD: At that point there was two. We had a bicycle as well, which came in pretty handy. And my sister went to her house on that after I went to a gas station and got in line to get some gas in jerry can. So eventually we ended up in a convoy of about four vehicles.

AMT: What do you know about your neighbourhood now?

SARAH MACDONALD: We've so far been very fortunate. We haven't heard anything about damage to our home or any of our friends in Thickwood or Timberlea, in those areas. We do know people that have lost their homes in other neighbourhoods. So we're incredibly fortunate that way, but we're waiting to see what happens today.

AMT: It must be so disturbing just not to know anything, huh?

SARAH MACDONALD: It's frustrating, that's for sure.

AMT: And so what are you worried about the most today?

SARAH MACDONALD: Mostly I'm worried about the winds and how they’re shifting. It's an incredible job that these fire fighters have and anything that could make their lives easier would be great, but they're saying it's not going to get any easier at all. So, I'm hoping that somehow we get a good shift in the winds and they start to make some headway against the flames.

AMT: How long have you lived in Fort McMurray?

SARAH MACDONALD: We've had a family home there since 2001 and I've been back full time for about five years now.

AMT: Okay. And never thought it would come to this, huh?

SARAH MACDONALD: No, no. This is like nothing I've ever seen before and nothing we ever predicted.

AMT: And are you able to be in touch with your neighbours? Do you know how everyone else is around?

DM: We've talked to a few people, some friends and family around town, people that got out and so far everyone that we know has gone somewhere safe, at the very least.

AMT: And so now you wait.

SARAH MACDONALD: Now we wait.

AMT: Okay, Sarah, it sounds like you haven’t had any sleep, huh?

SARAH MACDONALD: No, we’re all about to try and, you know, take a shower and hopefully get a nap and then wait and hear the news.

AMT: Okay. Well, I'll let you go. Thanks for speaking with me.

SARAH MACDONALD: No problem. Thank you.

AMT: That's Sarah MacDonald. She's a resident of Fort McMurray. She ended up traveling south to Beaumont. Well, Suk Sandhu is on the line now. He's a Fort McMurray oil worker. He works at an oil sands facility outside of the city. And we have reached him right now in a camp called Brookwood. Hi.

SUK SANDHU: Hi there.

AMT: Tell us, you're trying to organize other workers, are you?

SUK SANDHU: Yeah, I actually work nights. I just left site a couple of hours ago. I usually stay in Fort McMurray at a condo that I rent there, but I’m staying at the camp, because I can’t get into the city.

AMT: Where you are now, are there people coming? Are there evacuees?

SUK SANDHU: No. The people that evacuated was done last night and they all headed a lot further south towards Edmonton and Wandering River

AMT: Okay. So anybody at the camp you’re at right now is a worker?

SUK SANDHU: No. I’m actually the only staff member on night shift, so, like I said, I usually stay in town. Anybody that would be at this camp is on site working.

AMT: Okay. So work does continue at some of the oil sands projects that aren't touched by this, obviously?

SUK SANDHU: Our site is about 70 kilometres from the city of Fort McMurray, so it's safe there.

AMT: So, you actually had to get out of town, though, because you were working the night shift. So you saw what was going on in the city before you went to work.

SUK SANDHU: Yeah, I actually flew in from Victoria yesterday afternoon and I landed at the Fort McMurray airport around 1:00 and things seemed fine. I drove into the condo where I would normally hang out for a couple hours before heading out to site for my night shift. But I was only in the condo for about a half an hour when I started looking out. I’m up on the fourth floor and I could see, across the highway, the fire moving down the hill towards the downtown area, so I didn't even have a chance to grab anything. I just grabbed my truck keys and got in the truck and started driving trying to get out of the city.

AMT: So you didn't wait for an official evacuation order. You figured it out.

SUK SANDHU: Yeah, you could just see the way it was coming down the hill. Basically, from the hill to where we live there's just buildings in between so. Everything was just burning bright and red you could tell it was coming really fast.

AMT: And when you get on the road, what was that like then?

SUK SANDHU: That was really scary. There was, like I said, the forest is right beside the highway and it was burning up. Lots of debris flying around on the highway. There were just large pieces of debris that were on fire and landing on the road and starting other fires. And it was just pretty chaotic, just through three or four lanes of traffic, people trying to get around each other, some people not wanting to wait and wanting to just drive right up the middle of the highway in the grassy area. There'd been cars that were breaking down due to how much smoke there was getting into the engines. It was choking the engines out. And most people just pulled over and got out and got in other vehicles that were still on the side of the road.

AMT: And were you in the car alone?

SUK SANDHU: Yeah, I was by myself.

AMT: So, as you headed off to where you work, you sort of left it all behind?

SUK SANDHU: Yeah, for the first part it was kind of beside me and then I started getting out of the south end of the city and seeing the gas station and the Super 8 Motel on fire and the police were directing traffic up there. And then there was a mobile home park there, Centennial Park, that was completely engulfed in flames.

AMT: What it does look like?

SUK SANDHU: Like an apocalypse. It was just everything was red and burning. It didn’t look real.

AMT: And when the fire advances like that what do you hear?

SUK SANDHU: There's a lot of-- It was really hot inside the vehicle. Like, it felt like it was 50 or 60 degrees inside my vehicle. I didn’t want to stop, so I was trying to keep moving as much as I could. You could hear some pops in the background of probably, I guess, I’m assuming propane tanks and things like that that were exploding.

AMT: And the crackle of the fire too, I guess?

SUK SANDHU: Yeah, it was-- It was really loud.

AMT: What about the air? Like, how do you breathe in that kind of stuff?

SUK SANDHU: It was really smoky outside. You could start to taste it in the inside of the vehicle. Like I said, I was in that hot spot for about 20 minutes to half an hour while getting out and then as I kind of came up the hill and got to pass with the trailer park and the gas station were on fire, it cleared up a bit and then I started heading south.

AMT: So you were working the night shift and there's not a lot of people who do, right, at your company?

SUK SANDHU: No, there isn’t.

AMT: But will it stay open given that so many workers would live in Fort Mac might be affected by this?

SUK SANDHU: We don't have that many of our workers living in Fort Mac. They stay in a camp that’s closer to our job site. And the camp that I’m at here is kind of like an overflow camp that we use when sometimes rooms get booked at the other camp.

AMT: Yeah. So, I guess we'll see how that shakes down as time goes on if they need more help.

SUK SANDHU: Yeah, I mean, one of the things we go to worry about is any of the services provided on site, water and sewage and that kind of stuff, because since the town is evacuated we’re not sure if that’s going to be able to get supplied. So, we’re going to be talking about that today.

AMT: Yeah, that's pretty significant. No word on when you can get back in there, obviously.

SUK SANDHU: No, nothing yet. There’s still police blocking the highway going into the city.

AMT: Okay. Well, Suk, thanks for speaking with me.

SUK SANDHU: No problem.

AMT: Suk Sandhu is an oil worker in just outside of Fort McMurray and we reached him at a camp called Brookwood, south of the city. I'm going to talk to Chris Vandenbreekel. He's the news director at Mix 103.7. Hi.

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Hi.

AMT: Where are you?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: I'm at Grey Wolf Lodge, which is 50 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. When we left the city the highway was blocked off by fire to the south.

AMT: And tell me a little bit more, then, about what was going on as you left. What did you see?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Honestly, it looked like the apocalypse. The sky was just red and black, just nothing but smoke. The sun was completely blotted out. We could feel the heat. We could see little licks of flame and it was just getting too close for comfort and our general manager called and told us to get out.

AMT: So everybody just, like, you left the station. You got out of there.

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Yeah. We gave one last quick update about the evacuation notices. One of our jocks stayed behind a couple more minutes to put his voice track of the evacuation announcement in for another three hours and then we all headed north.

AMT: Where's the station, Chris? Where's in located in the city?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: The station is right in the heart of downtown, right across from city hall pretty much. So when we look out our studio window we’d look directly at Abasand.

AMT: And that's where you were when you got out. Did you did you get to go home?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: No. Fortunately, my wife was with another spouse of one of my co-workers. And they were able to go by the place and grab our essentials. I tried to go home, but there was no way to get there and I just had to get out of the city.

AMT: And as you did that-- You talk about everybody else trying to get out. I'm just wondering, that sense of panic, what were you feeling? What was the mood like as you went out?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: There was definitely a lot of panic, a lot of erratic driving. I narrowly avoided probably three collisions on the way up. Just everybody going, every man, every person for themselves and it took a little bit of calming down for people to be a little bit more orderly in their driving. Because it doesn't help when people are acting like that. And it’s just a lot of fear, a lot of panic. It happened so fast.

AMT: I was looking at some of the pictures last night. It’s just this wall of that bright orange flame. You know, just came out of nowhere.

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Yeah. There were people in Abasand. In fact, one of our co-workers who had gone up to get some stuff before the mandatory evacuation came in. He was heading back out of Abasand when they got gridlocked in and you could see the flames coming up behind him and then on either side of them and they were still gridlocked trying to get out of out of the neighbourhood. It was just an absolutely terrifying, and videos and photos that came out as well. I can’t imagine being in that situation. I feel like I got lucky.

AMT: So the decision was made that your station had to go off the air because no one could stay there?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: We didn't go off the air. We were still broadcasting music and our updates after every song and the emergency alerts. But then the internet got cut to the radio station. We were going to broadcast remotely, but we couldn't communicate with station. Nothing was getting through. So we’re looking at ideas at how we can get back on the air today, but it's going to be an uphill battle.

AMT: I guess that was the other point, eh, is people were trying to find out what to do. We talked to another woman who said her apartment building went dark, that the electricity gets cut off, the internet, so you don't know what to do.

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Yeah, exactly. And even before the evacuation order came in the power was flickering on and off constantly and the reason for that is because Fort McMurray is so remote, there’s only so many power lines that come into the city, only so many communication lines, and so if the fire catches those, then it makes power and internet a huge problem.

AMT: So you’re now at a place where there are a lot of other people who have evacuated?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Yeah. My estimates, because the lodge, honestly, has not been able to do a tally they’ve been so swamped. My estimates are between 2,000 and 5,000 people are here.

AMT: What's happening there?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Honestly, it’s like a [indecipherable] hotel. It’s a very nice facility. The rooms are quite nice. One of the nicer word camps up here. But especially the oil sands workers who are still here, they’re carrying on as normal. I can hear them playing pool outside the door here, actually. And the families, they're trying to stay calm. There are some kids who are quite scared. But everybody's just trying to carry on. They're having discussions about whether they're going to try and make their way south since the highway is reopened. Anybody with enough fuel is trying to do just that. But there is no fuel left up here, so if you don't have it now, you’re not going to make it.

AMT: So as you drove out of town were you driving right by the fire?

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: No. The way our station is situated we pretty much are able to exit onto the Athabasca Bridge. And by the time we did that the fire in Thickwood, which is across the bridge, was still quite a ways back. So we could see a lot of smoke and we could see a lot of flame in our rear view mirror as we could see more of Abasand, but we didn't come in any proximity to flames.

AMT: Okay. And you just wait there. I guess you're in a good place to hear what's going on, then. The group of you can be updated.

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Definitely. So we're working together. We’re keeping abreast of social media. We don't have access to our work email right now, which is a problem because that's where all our RMWB mailing lists are. So, we’re trying to get on the other mailing lists. We’re doing our best to keep in contact with our sources and to get information out as quickly as possible.

AMT: Okay. Well, thanks for speaking with me.

CHRIS VANDENBREEKEL: Thank you.

AMT: That is Chris Vandenbreekel. He is the news director at radio station Mix 107, currently, about 50 kilometres north of Fort McMurray now with about 2,000 or more people at the Grey Wolf Lodge. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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'Angry Inuk' argues anti-seal hunt campaign hurts Canadian Inuit life

Guests: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Sheryl Fink

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[chanting] Seals are yummy in my tummy!

VOICE: Supporting our seals, not the European Union. Support Us!

[chanting]I tried seal, so should you. I tried seal so should you and it tasted great.

AMT: The voices of some Inuit protesters in downtown Toronto. Their chants and messages may be polite and good natured but make no mistake, they are angry. They've traveled thousands of kilometres from home to mount what they would call a counter protest against the animal rights groups who protest their traditional seal hunt and who convinced the European Union to ban the import of seal products. It is that ban and the effect that it's had on the Inuit way of life that's captured in a new documentary called Angry Inuk, which screens at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto this week. The film's director, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is with me in our Toronto studio, hello.

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Thanks for having me.

AMT: No one clubs the seals in the high north, do they? They shoot them.

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Yes, we shoot them. I mean, traditionally back in the day people would harpoon them, but today we use rifles.

AMT: So, when they pop up and then they go out and get individual seals, it’s a long, painstaking process.

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: You might go out for a day or two, or three, or a week, and come back with one or two seals. That is typically the rate that people would hunt them.

AMT: What is the role of seals in Inuit society and culture?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Well, we call ourselves the people of the seal. Almost all Inuit communities are coastal, and our staple food is seal.

AMT: Tell us more about how you use them.

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Well, we eat all the meat as well as the organs such as the intestines, the heart, and the liver. We often use the bones for games or making jewelry. The fat was traditionally used for the oil lamps that would be used to heat the home and light the home. We don't do that as much now today, but people do still do that. And the sealskins, we use a lot of sealskins at home ourselves domestically. We still eat as much seal meat as we used to but, we don't live in sealskin tents anymore and we don't wear full sealskin clothing all of the time so, nowadays we have excess sealskins that we can sell.

AMT: Traditionally, how dependent were the Inuit on what you call the sealskin industry, then?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Well, I mean we didn't live on a cash economy before contact with Europeans, although there was still trade among Inuit and First Nations, but about 100 years ago, Inuit started trading with The Hudson's Bay Company and whalers and that kind of thing. When the Inuit were forced off the land and into permanent settlements throughout the 1950s and 1960s, because the Canadian government wanted Inuit to be settled so that we could lay claim to the Arctic for Canada for sovereignty purposes, when we became settled into communities, suddenly we had to pay rent and buy things and pay for fuel, things that we never had to before. In the 1950s and 1960s when anti-sealing campaigns started was right around the same time we became very dependent on a cash livelihood.

AMT: You travelled on a hunt with an elder named Lasaloosie. He says his world changed with the ban brought in by the European Union in 1983. Let's listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

When we lived full time out on the land we relied on selling seal skins. And then one day very suddenly we were told the seal skins are no longer being bought. It was 1983. We had no choice but to move into town because nobody wanted our seal skins anymore. The prices of seal skin completely crashed. We had to try to sell carvings and find whatever odd jobs we could. We didn't sell any seal skin although we continued to hunt them for food. This had a real impact on us, our children, our communities.

AMT: Alethea, what was the wider impact of that EU ban?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: People went hungry. A lot of people went hungry and that clip always make me a little emotional because there are so many government initiatives that tried to force Inuit off the land into communities. Tens of thousands of sled dogs were shot so that Inuit couldn't live independently on the land anymore. Children were taken away and put into residential schools. There are a lot of ways that Inuit were forced into communities, but there were some holdouts. Lasaloosie was one of those families that was the resistance against that whole system and he was able to stay out there because of the seal skin market, but when that disappeared and his family was going hungry, his daughter is a very good friend of mine and I've heard stories of how hard it was for them. They were forced, you know, the last resisters had to move into town and send their children to school and be part of that whole system that tried to take our language and culture away.

AMT: So what did the EU ban do 1983?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: It destroyed the reputation of sealskin everywhere. In ’83, the ban was only targeting white coat harp seal pups, but all seal skin sales crashed immediately. So even though Canadian Inuit primarily hunt ring seals and primarily adults, our market also crashed. For example, in Resolute Bay, I saw a statistic saying that average incomes went from $50,000 that year to the very next year after the ban, it went down to $1,000, so it was devastating.

AMT: And then it came up again in the EU in 2009, what changed?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: I'm not sure why, I mean Sheryl could probably speak to that more effectively why the campaign started up again to pass a new ban. But, in 2009, the EU passed a new ban on seal products that was more strict than the previous one. This one banned all types of sealskin. It had an exemption for Inuit eventually, but the ‘83 ban also had an exemption for Inuit and didn't do anything to protect us. So once again, the market crashed and we're still seeing five to ten percent of the market. It's only five to ten percent now than what it was before the ban.

AMT: You are talking about Sheryl Fink, who is the director of Canadian Wildlife campaigns for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. She's sitting here listening in, hi. Before I come to you though, I just want to get a little bit more of an understanding of what Alethea has tracked in her film because at one point you film, with an Inuit group that is lobbying against changes with the EU, and you realize that you're up against well-organized animal rights groups. What happened? What did you see?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Well, I think I naively thought [laughs], if we just tell people that we’re affected then they wouldn’t do this to us, but once the group got over there, I didn't have any money to make this film at that point so, I hired a couple of camera people who lived there in Europe to follow my lead character, Aaju Peters, and her small group of volunteers around the EU parliament. When I saw the footage come back, I was stunned to see what we're up against, and not just the well-funded animal groups, but the number of European parliamentarians that were voting that we had to reach and we just, we don't have the resources to reach that many people.

AMT: Well, we have a clip from that time with Aaju Peters, who is the character you follow. There's an exchange between her and Bart Strasse, a Belgian member of parliament. Let's listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

BART STRASSE: We are not in favour of a ban on seals, but in the legislation that we will vote on at noon, there is an exception for Inuit people, so they can go on with for their personal use with killing seals and that's the only exception, to preserve the people of the Inuit.

AAJU PETERS: For me, the exception is of no use because once the commercial hunt goes down, once the price goes down, he won't be able to make any money off the seals on which he and his wife depends. So, whether there is an exception or not, we are being affected.

AMT: So, the EU ban in 2009 exempted the Inuit, allowing the Inuit to sell seal fur, explain why that wasn’t helpful.

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Well, when you have a niche product that not a lot of people know anything about, a ban like this just destroys the reputation for the product in general. No fashion designers want to buy material that they can only sell their products in a handful of countries especially since Europe is such an important driver of the fashion industry. And it's always really frustrating for me to hear that clip because there she was telling him, you know we're part of the commercial market, if there's a commercial ban it's going to affect us and he just says but the Inuit can have an exemption for personal use and. She's standing right there telling him we sell them and he just couldn't get it through his mind. The messaging has been so clear and so strong from animal groups for so long that Inuit are separate from the commercial seal hunt which is a false dichotomy because we also have commercial sealers. He just had a really hard time getting that messaging out of his head.

AMT: Okay, I'm going to Sheryl Fink. She has been listening in with the International Fund for Animal Welfare and maybe I can get you to speak to that as we continue this conversation. Essentially, she's saying they became collateral damage in the animal rights fight against a different seal hunt. Can you can you speak to that?

SHERYL FINK: For us it is a very different seal hunt. There are two different operations and that was what I really appreciated actually about the film, seeing it last night. It really showed the differences between the two types of hunting. Alethea was saying that the Inuit hunt they would kill maybe one to two seals over a matter of weeks as opposed to the east coast hunt where they killed 50,000 animals in the first week alone this year. So, to us, they've always been very two different activities. We've tried to always make that distinction when we're talking about our campaigns. The wording that we've used as a commercial seal hunt to try to distinguish the two, maybe that's not the best choice of words, maybe we should call it the east coast hunt. The difference is it's the same as the difference between trawling for fish and a man throwing a line off the end of his dock. They're both fishing, but they're two very different types of activities; two very different scales and different purposes.

AMT: Were you aware that when you first became part of the anti-sealing movement that there were different seal hunts? That they were really very, very different?

SHERYL FINK: Yes. I've only ever been to the east coast hunt myself, I've been for 12 years and I've seen what happens there is very different from what we saw in the film last night what happens in the north.

AMT: Have you ever gone to the north to see how they hunt?

SHERYL FINK: No, and again that's not what our campaign is about.

AMT: Well, I want to play another clip that Alethea has in her film that speaks to the wider seal hunt, and you've seen the film, so you know it. Alethea, you dug up a 30-year old piece from As it Happens. The environmentalist, Paul Watson, who was breaking from Greenpeace at the time of this interview, talks about images of the seal hunt. Let's listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

You see, the thing is the seal is very easy to exploit as an image. We have posters, we have buttons, we have shirts, all of which portray the head of a baby seal with tears coming out of its eyes. Baby seals are always crying because the salt tears keep their eyes from freezing. And because of that, coupled with the horror of a sealer hitting them over the head with a club, it's an image that goes right to the heart of animal lovers all over North America.

AMT: Alethea, how much of an impact did those campaigns have on the Inuit?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: [sighs] Long lasting, devastating impacts that we're still feeling today. Inuit are still the most economically disadvantaged in North America. We have seven in ten Inuit children going to school hungry, we have the highest unemployment rates, the highest suicide rates, and the highest cost of living. So, it still very much affects us. But I wonder if I could just comment specifically to something Sheryl was talking about, that there are 50,000 seals killed in the southern Canadian hunt. Inuit typically hunt about 60,000 seals in a year. It fluctuates depending on the market, the number of skins we sell, but the number of seals we eat is around that number. So, they're not as different as you think. They just do it in the south in a shorter period of time. Something I really wanted to point out is, they mention these numbers to make it sound like it's so huge, but when you take in the fact that there are between 8 and 10 million harp seals in the Atlantic ocean, I think that's important to point out because I think they mention hunt numbers hoping that people think, oh that sounds like a lot, maybe we’re endangering them, but seals are nowhere near endangered and I think that's something that's important to know.

AMT: Sheryl, what do you say to that?

SHERYL FINK: I agree that they're not endangered. I don't think anyone from the campaigns has ever said that harp seals are endangered, that's not the case, but it is a very different sort of hunt when you're killing 50,000 animals in a week. The other thing with the east coast hunt, the southern hunt, is that most of the meat isn't used. The figures that we're getting from Fisheries and Oceans show that about over 90 percent of the meat is wasted or left on the ice. When we've been out there we see the carcasses are just thrown overboard. Again, very different from what we saw on the film last night where even the intestines were used and just the way they pelt the seal was different; the blubber was left on the carcass rather than taken with the skin. But the east coast hunt is still primarily a hunt for skins. Some flippers are consumed locally within Newfoundland, but by and large, most of the meat isn't used. Again, making it very, very different from the one in the north.

AMT: How do you react to what Paul Watson says in that old clip about how, basically the harp seal pups are used to tug at the heartstrings of people to make that argument?

SHERYL FINK: I think it is a very compelling image to see, especially back in the 70s when we were hunting white coats of seals less than two months of age who are still nursing from their mothers. Seeing them being killed in front of their mothers, that was a very, very powerful image. Today we don't kill whitecoat seals, we kill seals that are between three weeks and three months of age so they're slightly older animals but, still I think the sense is that we don't need to be slaughtering wildlife when the primary motive is for profit. Again, in the Inuit hunt, the primary motive is for food and I think most people sort of distinguish between those two activities.

AMT: But do you not bear some responsibility for the people conflating those two hunts? How do you respond to the fact that what Alethea is saying in her film, is that essentially they are suffering the fallout from people who don't understand there's a difference because when they look at your campaigns, it's not spelled out?

SHERYL FINK: We've been trying very hard I think over the past few decades to make that distinction. It's the government of Canada I see who's been really trying to conflate the two and I think in some cases they've been trying to use Inuit seal hunt as sort of a cover for the southern seal hunt, and sort of portray it as all the same sort of activity. But we've tried to make that distinction. It's been very difficult but—

AMT: Do you put it right in your literature?

SHERYL FINK: Yes. Yeah. We have a section in almost all of our literature and our videos sort of pointing out the differences between the two activities and why we don't oppose the Inuit seal hunt.

AMT: Alethea, do you think that maybe the government is more to blame here than the actual animal rights activists?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Absolutely not. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm openly critical of many things about the Canadian government, but we are affected by the animal groups, not the Canadian government on this issue and I’d actually like to point out that I don't think the problem is conflating the two hunts, I think it's making false dichotomies between the two seal hunts. Yes, the hunts look different. Yes, for us, it's mainly indigenous people and we do eat the meat, but the sealskin market is one and it would take a ridiculous amount of money to try to make a distinction between Inuit hunted seal skins and southern hunted seal skins. It's one market, and when you campaign against seal hunting, it affects all of us.

AMT: You make the point in the film that without the ability to hunt seal and sell seal products that people living in the high Arctic will be forced into a drilling and extraction industry. What are you talking about?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: The sealskin market crashed in ’83, and again in 2009, and we're left trying to figure out what else we can do and for decades, we've been working to try to figure out what kind of economic options we have. It’s extremely difficult for us to manufacture things because shipping is so expensive, it's hard to be competitive on much of anything. So mainly what is available to us is raw minerals and resources. Mining and offshore oil drilling are really our main other options. Of course, we've maximized other industries like the Inuit arts, filmmaking, for example. We have the most filmmakers per capita in North America, people would be surprised to learn.

AMT: I didn't know that.

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Yes, so believe me, we're doing our best to find other sustainable economies and we've been working for a very long time to try to lift our people out of poverty. But the fact is, even when we maximize the number of Inuit who are educated and trained to do other kinds of jobs, we're still left with not enough work, and mining becomes the only other option.

AMT: Sheryl Fink, how do you respond to the idea that the very conservation groups that are against the seal hunt could be encouraging mining extraction, drilling for fossil fuels?

SHERYL FINK: I don't see that link and I'm pretty sure—

AMT: Why not? Do you just not accept what she's saying? If I'm not mistaken, she's essentially saying if you think this is bad then the very conservation that you want to protect is going to be more endangered. Are you saying you just don't accept that?

SHERYL FINK: I guess I'm not seeing the argument that the Inuit seal hunt cannot be marketed or distinguished from the southern seal hunt. I think it's critical that we do distinguish between the two. I think the Europeans wanted to protect Inuit livelihoods, wanted to protect their rights to commercially sell sealskins as a products from their hunt, and that's why the exemption was in place. If the exemption is ineffective, I think we need to look at what other opportunities there might be or what alternatives there might be. As long as the northern hunt is tying itself to the southern hunt, unfortunately there may be these negative repercussions that are not intended from campaigns against the southern hunt. I think of it as there are international campaigns against blood diamonds right now, but northern diamonds, or Canadian diamonds, have found a way to distinguish themselves as ethical diamonds and I sort of see an opportunity for that with northern seal skins and seal hunts; to market it separately from the southern hunt.

AMT: Okay, well we do know that the federal government just put more money into of a certification program that actually looks like it came under the Harper government. The certification and market access programs for seals, which is a 5.7 million dollar program established in 2015. You're saying that that would do certification for the seal products?

SHERYL FINK: I was actually kind of pleased to see the government do that, finally. When the exemption and the ban first went into place, Greenland was very quick to take the steps to get their seal skins certified so that they could go continue to go into the market. Canada sort of dragged its feet a little bit, I guess because of the WTO challenge and they were focused on that, and not taking advantage of the exception for Inuit seal hunts. And I'm sort of pleased to see that that's finally happening now; that they do seem to be putting their efforts towards protecting Inuit sealing.

AMT: Alethea, does that help?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Yes, I'd like to speak to that. Greenland immediately decided to certify their products for sale in Europe. Their market was still five to 10 percent of what it was before the EU ban so it didn't help them. Canadian Inuit chose not to go for this certification, and instead chose to fight to overturn the ban. And we've talked about this before. So, I just find it funny when she continues to talk about this exemption as if it's a good thing, as if it's the Canadian government deciding not to certify these projects or being lazy about it. It was Inuit who decided that we did not want to go for the certification because it's, in effect, endorsing the ban in a way. Now that the WTO challenge is over and the ban was not overturned, we have no choice but to go through the certification process and hope that at some point, maybe the pelt prices will rise again. They're still too low to make a living off of. I'd also like to point out Sheryl's comparison with, you know, fair trade products or blood diamonds [laughs]. The diamond industry is massive, talk about billions and billions of dollars. They can afford to carve out different markets and put up campaigns for different types of product. The Inuit seal skin market is tiny. I mean, we can barely afford to feed ourselves. We don't have the resources to be putting out branding which costs enormous amounts of money that we simply don't have and would really just be pouring it down the drain when animal groups continue to spend millions a year putting out campaigns smearing the reputation of all sealskin.

AMT: Sheryl Fink.

SHERYL FINK: This is what makes me angry. Because the commercial hunt has got millions of dollars for branding, they're getting hundreds of thousands from the federal government for branding and market promotion, why isn't that money being used to help Inuit?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Once again, the commercial hunt includes Inuit.

AMT: You make the point, let's talk about language for a minute, you make the point that those who are trying to stop your hunt, or get in the way of that, they want you frozen in time. What do you mean by that?

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: Well, we're expected to not be able to make a living. We're expecting--I hear from many people online say oh I'm only against commercial seal hunting, I have no problem with the Inuit subsistence seal hunting, and I've heard those exact words come out of Sheryl's mouth, and that is kind of a condescending expectation for me. While I do agree that the vast majority of Inuit are hunting for food purposes, I disagree with the idea that we don't have the right to make a profit like anyone else.

AMT: Sheryl Fink.

SHERYL FINK: For us, it's distinguishing between a hunt that is primarily for the purposes of feeding yourself and a hunt that is primarily for the purposes of taking the skin to make luxury products to sell to an international market.

AMT: You call your film The Angry Inuk but you make the point that you don't get angry in your culture.

ALETHEA ARNAQUQ-BARIL: No, we do get angry, we just express it differently. As a culture, we express them differently and the volume of our anger tends to just be a little quieter and we place importance on the ability to stay calm under pressure. Historically, in small communities, people would use humour and reasonable discussion to negotiate conflict and when someone loses their temper, we see that as a sign of weakness, or perhaps a sign of a guilty conscience. For that reason, when there is something extremely distressing and upsetting to us, we tend to try to stay calm. For me, it's a survival instinct and so, for that reason I think we're often misunderstood. People don't realize how upset we are about certain things. You know, we don't throw bombs, we don't put up blockades, we don't do screaming protests. So, I chose to call the film, Angry Inuk so that people would learn this about Inuit culture, so that we could be better heard not just on the seal hunting issue, but in general on environmental issues, on climate change, on polar bears. When we speak up and say this is wrong, this affects us, the world needs to pay close attention and listen a little more carefully.

AMT: Thank you both for coming in. Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is the director of Angry Inuk, a new documentary screening at the Hot Docs Festival this week in Toronto. Sheryl Fink is the director of the Canadian Wildlife campaign for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. They were both with me in our Toronto studio. Head to our web site, cbc.ca/thecurrent where we will link to two of Alethea Arnaquq-Baril’s earlier documentaries, an animated film and a short feature on a unique northern sport, the Inuit high kick. Today, we wanted to let you know about a new initiative here at The Current. We are proud that millions of Canadians join us here every day on the radio, on our podcasts, on our app, and now we're offering one more way for you to connect with us. Written transcripts of everything we do here on The Current are now available on our web site. Transcripts of each and every story we air will be posted for free the same day as those stories air. Whether you or someone you know is deaf or hard of hearing, an English language learner, a post-secondary student, anyone who just wants to read along as they listen or whether you want to go back and read up on a story you heard, spread the word if you know someone who would like to find these transcripts useful.Please let them know they are on the episodes page of our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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May 4, 2016 full episode transcript

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