Quebec forest fires shutter businesses during lucrative fishing season

Western Quebec hunting and fishing outfitters worry this month's forest fires will have a lasting impact on their businesses.

Dozens of pourvoirie operators make their living in a remote, rugged area of the region that is largely uninhabited and without electricity. It's known to Canadians and Americans for the quality of its hunting and fishing. 

In many cases, wildfires closed single, rudimentary access roads to the camps at the height of the busy fishing season.

"If I hadn't gone to douse my cabin myself, we would have lost it," said Mario Richer in a French interview with Radio-Canada.

Richer operates Pourvoirie Maxime Hunting and Fishing about four hours north of Gatineau. He said he watched as the fire crept closer and closer to a cabin still under construction.

He used a portable, gasoline-powered water pump around the clock to wet the ground around the building. In total, about 400 hectares of land around him burned.

"When the storm line came through, it was just lightning dancing, hitting the lake right in the bay where the camp is," said Jayne Stoddart, who runs Domaine Stoddart near Fort Colounge.

Stoddart's camp remains closed. During the fires, clients captured videos from aluminum boats on remote Lac Nilgault of smoke rising from the woods and the sky turning orange.

It is a busy and important part of the year in her area for both bear hunting and fishing.

Stoddart was forced to cancel on her fishing customers, lock up and head south in a hurry.

"It was close. When we drove through you could smell that burning, it was really burning," she said.

Some access roads reopened

Some access roads reopened in the area south of the fires in Abitibi.

Still, the damage has been done for those like Serge Danis, president of the Quebec outfitters association.

Danis said the fires have cost his camp $10,000 a day during what he referred to as the "bacon" of the fishing season.

"It is a catastrophe," he said in a French interview.

He called on the province to help those whose businesses have been affected by the fires.

Last week Quebec's natural resources minister, Maïté Blanchette Vézina said she was sensitive to the situation of outfitters. No specific aid program has been announced, though.

Well-known local hunting and fishing expert Jean Larivière said hunters may be in the same boat as the fishers, adding the damage is "not done yet."

The fires consumed hundreds of hectares of prime moose and deer hunting lands — that season takes place in the fall.

Many outfitters said they wonder if the animals will leave and that lucrative part of their business year also goes up in smoke.