For trappers, the land is their office — wildfires have them bracing for the worst

By Brittany Hobson Some trappers are expecting “catastrophic losses” to their food and financial security this year, as Canada’s second-worst wildfire season on record sent swaths of remote boreal forest up in flames. The latest figures from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre suggest fires have torn through 78,000 square kilometres of land, with most of the fires on the Prairies. “These are humongous fires … (the) majority of the traplines will be affected in a big way,” said Ron Spence, a trapper from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. “I’m sure there’s portions of my line that are going to be affected.” Roughly 20,000 square kilometres of land have burned this year, considered Manitoba’s worst wildfire season in at least 30 years. It’s more than double the area from…

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