In pictures: Enterprise regroups at jamboree one year after fire

Hundreds of people came from across the North to support the first Enterprise summer celebration since a wildfire destroyed many of the community’s homes a year ago.

A Friday night concert was followed by a Saturday family fun day in sweltering – if blustery – conditions as the Enterprise Gateway Jamboree returned.

Last year’s wildfire had struck on the same jamboree weekend. That year, a similarly persistent wind turned into a freak 90 km/h gale that drove a previously far-distant wildfire straight through the hamlet.

Enterprise had just under 100 residents at the time. Almost all of them either lost property or had relatives who did, and they have spent the ensuing year trying to rebuild.

“I just felt we needed something where residents of Enterprise could put the trauma in their back pocket for a couple of days, come out and get hugs,” said Evellyn Coleman, the hamlet’s event coordinator. By 2pm on Saturday, she had posted nearly 15,000 steps and eight kilometres of walking for the day.

“It wasn’t about having a jamboree and making it seem like nothing happened,” she said. “It was having a jamboree filled with friends, family and support. There’s a lot of support out there for Enterprise.”

Coleman lost her home to the 2022 Hay River flood. If Saturday was a day to soothe some fire-hit residents’ pain, for Coleman it offered relief from her own loss.

“It’s taken me a while. I understand the trauma people are going through, I understand it takes a long time to get over that,” she said.

“This is almost the first time I’ve actually been able to breathe.”

Barb Hart took over as Enterprise’s mayor at the start of July, affording her the opportunity to open this year’s jamboree on Saturday morning.

Hart had been on her way home from High Level, in northern Alberta, when last year’s evacuation order went out.

“It’s a terrible thing to have to go through. I’m hoping this can show that we will go forward. This is something we needed,” Hart said on Saturday.

She noted that while this year’s jamboree had a fantastic attendance and a hot, sunny day, the effects of last year’s fire were all around.

“All this area used to be full of trees,” she said, gesturing to the hamlet beyond the jamboree grounds. “Now you can see what is actually behind it. You never could see that before.”

Her message to residents? “For everybody to be hopeful, to get together. Let’s make it work – and have people come back.”

In theory, Erin Porter’s kids were spending their Saturday afternoon running a beautifully decorated lemonade stand to the left of the jamboree stage.

In practice, Porter was the one dealing with the lengthy lemonade lineup.

During a short break – the stall had run out of lemonade and the kids were frantically making more – she described how her own house survived last year’s fire, but her parents lost theirs. “Now I have them and my sister and brother-in-law camping out on my yard,” she said.

“I think it’s great, though, that the few of us who are here could come together and do the jamboree again,” said Porter.

“The big thing for me is to bring everyone else back to the community. We still don’t have all of our community members, and hopefully that will come.”

Michele Stephens, from Hay River, was one of the NWT residents showing up to support the hamlet’s biggest celebration of the year.

“They know how to capture happiness,” Stephens said. “Last year was the first time I got to come – and I’m not going to miss it.”

While most of Hay River escaped the same fate as Enterprise last year, the town’s residents were still forced from their homes for several weeks. Stephens spent most of August and September 2023 on an acreage in Peace River before being able to come home.

“I think we’re all ready for a big batch of boring,” she concluded. “No more disasters.”