It’s been over five months since most of Enterprise was destroyed by wildfires, and the majority of residents have still not been able to return.
“Everybody’s still displaced. People are all over,” said the community’s former senior administrative officer Tammy Neal, who has been living at a business property outside town since her home was razed by the August fires.
“I think a lot of people are feeling hopeless. I know of four people who have contemplated suicide, and that comes from hopelessness, doesn’t it?”
Neal “lost everything” in the fire. “Nothing was salvaged,” she said.
Her home was insured, but collecting an insurance payout in hopes of rebuilding has been a “slow process,” and the lack of progress has been discouraging, particularly after an October visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“Prime Minister Trudeau looked me in the face and said, ‘You will not be forgotten. We will not forget you guys,’” she said. “So far, I feel forgotten.”
Neal admitted she might not be completely up to date on what the federal government is doing to help Enterprise, but claimed that’s because the hamlet office, including current senior administrative officer (SAO) Blair Porter and Mayor Michael St. Amour, have failed to keep residents in the loop.
“I personally — along with some other residents — am not happy with the hamlet office or the council,” she said. “We’ve basically been forgotten. We haven’t been consulted. We haven’t been given updates.
“Why are they not reaching out to us and talking to us and keeping us up to date and having a little compassion? They need to start reaching out to the people that lost their homes and asking questions and taking things seriously.”
Neal is indeed not alone in her concerns about a lack of communication from local leaders.
Winnie Cadieux, a former Enterprise mayor who lost both her home and business in August, shares that sentiment.
“They’re the ones that are supposed to be advocating for our community to rebuild, for us getting back there, for us to have some semblance of our lives back and have our homes back,” Cadieux said. “I don’t feel that they’re advocating in a positive, healthy way. They’re not letting us know.
“We were lucky enough to meet the prime minister, and he was very gracious and spoke with all of us,” she added. “And yes, there have been some encouraging things coming from [the federal government], they have sent money to the GNWT, but our mayor kind of took a leadership role in that, and was the one that was directly communicating with the federal government, and I believe that he’s not communicating that back effectively to us.
“We really don’t know what’s going on.”
Different views on MACA
Porter, who worked as Enterprise’s fire chief before taking up the mantle as SAO, has a different perspective on things.
He admitted that his office doesn’t “have the time to phone everybody and let everybody know exactly what’s going on,” but said his staff are making efforts to keep people updated with social media posts and a quarterly newsletter, and they have also encouraged residents to send questions to info@enterprise-nt.ca – an email account he said is monitored daily.
He also contended that his office is not in a position to answer some of the questions people have, and that questions should instead be directed to Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA), a GNWT department that has been helping to rebuild Enterprise and get residents back into homes.
“Usually, we’re the ones that do deal with things that happen in Enterprise, but when it comes to the cleanup, that’s MACA’s deal,” he said. “They’re footing the bill, so they’re dealing with it, and they’re the ones that are communicating – or supposed to be – with the residents.”
“I get that [residents] are frustrated with a lack of communication. We don’t have any answers for them, which is unfortunate, but at the same time, if MACA is the one that’s going to be making the decisions, they should be the ones that are communicating those decisions to the public.
“In fact, my staff has expressed the frustration that MACA has been expecting us to do their job.”
While Neal has been disappointed with a lack of communication from the hamlet office, she does not believe there’s been a lack of communication from MACA, who she said has been providing “a lot of support.”
“They’ve been helpful,” she said. “I think they’ve gone overboard in listening to us complain.”
Cadieux, who has been working closely with MACA because her home was uninsured, shares that perspective, and has found the organization’s “pathfinder” especially helpful.
“I think they’re doing a better job [than the hamlet office] for sure,” she said. “I mean, they keep in touch. We have weekly reports from them. The pathfinder is there when you want to speak with him. He has an office in Enterprise. He has a phone number and email. He’s always willing to talk and help and do as much as he can to inform you of what papers need to be filled out and whatnot.”
“I believe that the GNWT is doing the best they can, too. I mean, it’s a totally unprecedented event, so you’ve got to give them credit for what they have been doing.”
‘Moving forward’
Porter is one of what he estimates is about 25 of some 100 Enterprise residents who have been able to return to the community since the fire.
He said there are still days when he struggles to believe what’s happened to the community. One of the most jarring changes, he said, is the lack of trees. Before August, the foliage was thick, and hid the view of the railroad that cuts through town, but since the disaster, the trains that roll through can be seen “clear as day, because all the trees are burned.”
“I’ve had moments where you remember what it was like, and then you take a look across town and it’s just nothing like what it was before,” he said. “The shock has kind of worn off, but there’s still times where it kind of hits home again.”
Faced with the destruction of Enterprise every day, the SAO said his priority is “moving ahead.”
That mission includes plans to launch a local housing corporation, and create a new residential and commercial development on hamlet land, though the latter project is unlikely to be completed this year.
“We have some land that we are planning on developing this year, and hopefully, if this all works out, we’ll be able to put some houses on there,” he explained. “Even if [people] can’t buy it, they can rent it, they can live here.”
Porter’s plans will not encourage everyone.
Neal heard about the potential new development in Enterprise, but expressed concern that interested contractors only “want to benefit from our loss.”
Cadieux, meanwhile, stated she will be moderating her optimism as it pertains to moving back to Enterprise.
“We can’t say when we’ll move back, or what it will be like, because there are so many questions to be answered yet,” she said.
Enterprise is currently in the middle of a municipal election, which is set to end on Jan. 13.
Dehcho MLA Sheryl Yakeleya could not be reached for comment.
