Surrounded by fire: A summer of water testing in Northern Saskatchewan

I have been living and working in northern Saskatchewan for the last 30 years. I am retired now but still spend most of my time at my cabin on Holgar Lake and on Cree Lake. The water quality up here is beautiful, with lake shores ringed by sandstone boulders or fine white sand beaches. The landscape is shaped by the last glacial retreat, and the lakes are dotted with rounded drumlins, sand dunes, and eskers.

West shore of Morrison Island, Cree Lake. Drumlin shaped islands.

My grandson has been coming up with me every summer since he was 18 months old; he is now almost 12. He loves it and wants to become a pilot/geologist (a lofty goal indeed) and spend his time up here. He helps me with water testing, and it is another great way for him to learn about the environment.

Surrounded by fire

This summer, the routine changed drastically. We are used to forest fires up here; the jack pine and caribou moss for ground cover tend to dry quickly as soon as the snow is gone or it stops raining. But this year, the snow melted early, in the middle of April, and there was very little precipitation since. It seems to be much windier too.

I picked up Pierse on July 14th in Alberta, the same day the Huntley fire started—a lightning strike on the strip of land between Cree and Holgar Lake. I was worried about this fire because I knew there was a lot of old growth in that area and a few cabins. I keep an eye on the fire situation through the Saskatchewan wildfire site, CWFIS (Canadian Wildfire Information System), and the NASA Firms satellite images.

The long-range forecast didn’t look good: extreme heat, wind, and no precipitation. We decided to rush up to the cabin. It is a 500 km drive to the turnoff, a 40 km ATV ride, and then a 10 km boat ride. We were greeted at the portage by a huge column of smoke; the fire was quite close by then.

We jumped in the boat and headed south on the lake. It was soon clear that the whole northwest shore of the lake was on fire.

This area is under the Isle à la Crosse wildfire management district. I called as soon as we got to the cabin and, thankfully, spoke to someone I knew from previous fire events. The situation was extreme—there were so many new fires, crews and equipment were stretched thin, and communities were the priority. He promised some equipment as soon as the float plane could drop by.

For two days, we watched and listened to the fire grow. It kept moving south on the west shore, jumped onto one of the islands, and burned part of the main narrows that we normally boat through. The fire intensity was terrifying at times—it sounded like a freight train, and the smoke plume would tower, obliterating the sun.

Might as well go water testing

There was very little we could do. We thinned some trees and limbed others, cleared any combustibles close to the buildings. So off we went to do our water tests and get our minds off the fire.

Help is here

One morning, I heard the plane. This is a sound that never fails to lift your spirits when you work or live in remote locations. It’s usually good news and fresh supplies. In this case, it was pumps, hoses, and sprinklers for my cabin and my neighbour’s. The crews couldn’t stay; they had to go to Cree Lake where the situation was out of control. We were left to deal with this on our own. My neighbour had serious health issues and couldn’t get up here, so we decided to help him out.

We loaded the equipment for the north cabin into the boat and learned on the fly how to set up the sprinklers. We were successful in saving the neighbour’s cabin—the fire came within a few meters, but we held our ground like pros. We were getting a little blasé by then :).

Smoke and ash on the lake

On Holgar, we tested while the fire was raging close by, and again a little later when the fire had moved on further south. Initially, there were thick mats of ash and partially burned bark floating on the lake. There also appeared to be some sort of particles dispersed throughout the water column; I wondered if it was some kind of algae. The tests showed an increase in the pH and the conductivity. Everything else was normal. By the last test, the lake had been under smoke cover for a month. The smoke was very thick at times.

On Cree, we tested as the fire was still burning about 8 kilometers from our test location. Here too, the pH was higher; everything else was normal.

The fires are getting more intense than in the past. The fire season is also much longer. This year, for instance, it’s the end of August, and the Huntley/Levitt fire is still burning. Communities of the north were evacuated.

I see the change in the trees and the ground cover. In some cases now, the ground cover root system is destroyed by the fire and nothing grows back. This is a very sandy area, and erosion is increasing. I wonder what the changes are for the aquatic life. The water stays warm much longer too, and I know that lake trout don’t do well with that. The ice is different too, and the melt in the spring is becoming more unpredictable. I hope to contribute more information that will help to track these changes.