ABSTRACT
The particularly severe wildfire season of 2015 resulted in the largest evacuation ever experienced in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. La Ronge – a region of northern Saskatchewan comprising one First Nation and two municipal jurisdictions – was among the areas significantly affected by the wildfires. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with local government representatives and community residents, this chapter examines how institutions for emergency and wildfire management shaped pathways for adaptation, as well as how gender and other intersecting social structures and power influenced these pathways. The analysis revealed a strong emphasis on incremental approaches to wildfire adaptation, with a primary focus on technical, physical, and economic impacts and the agencies that responded to these impacts. While these measures are important, alone they fail to address many of the more intangible impacts experienced by community residents, many of which were experienced differently across intersections of gender, race, socioeconomic status, and age. Ultimately, there is a need for deeper transformative change towards inclusive adaptation as large, frequent, and intense fires continue to become the ‘new normal’ for communities across boreal regions of Canada.
