Enterprise to publish wildfire rebuild roadmap after meetings

The Hamlet of Enterprise, much of which was destroyed by a wildfire in 2023, will soon publish a document outlining an action plan toward rebuilding.

The wildfire’s aftermath hasn’t been the only challenge. There has been political upheaval too, with councillors falling out, mayors coming and going, and senior staff leaving.

Last week, Grant Hood – the public administrator appointed in May by the NWT government, which decided the hamlet had too many “governance, financial, and operational challenges” to continue as it was – organized meetings with residents to sketch out the way forward.

Called Rebuilding Our Community, the two meetings involved a discussion about the hamlet’s “desired future” on Tuesday, then a session about a community action plan on Wednesday.

The resulting document is expected later this week or next week, Hood told Cabin Radio.

“They’ve expressed where they feel the priority should be in rebuilding and things like that,” he said of residents who attended.

“We’ve taken that, looked at the staff and what we can do, and then we’re going to be issuing a report on what we found and some timelines of things we want to do, from a rebuilding point of view.”

Enterprise wasn’t a large community even before the fire, at around 100 people. The fire, which arrived with virtually no notice on August 13, 2023, then destroyed many homes and businesses.

In the two years since, residents have described a community divided. In May, when Hood was appointed, outgoing mayor Mike St Amour told Cabin Radio issues like insurance – and who got what kind of support post-fire – had created “a big rift” that persisted into 2025.

Hood, a former Inuvik senior administrator who brought in local government expert Gord McIntosh to facilitate last week’s meetings, is aware of that dynamic.

“There’s no magic wand. Things can’t be done overnight, Some people want certain things done, other people want other things done,” he said.

“We’ve made a lot of progress on getting the community together and agreeing on, ‘OK, where do we need to go?’ So that’s a start.”

Hood said residents are clearly in need of “a lot of healing” – and part of the hamlet’s job is to identify the best resources for that, while addressing its own issues like short-staffing.

“Communication with the community becomes important because I think for the last little while the indication I got – and I may be partially wrong – but to me, it seemed like there was just not a lot of communication on what was happening, or nobody was listening to them,” said Hood.

“You have to listen to them. They’ve gone through a traumatic experience. There’s issues that I can’t fix. Some of it’s personalities, that’s just one of the unfortunate circumstances in a small, small community, but you do the best you can and make decisions you feel are best for the whole community.

“I’ve told staff, and I think I’ve told a few residents: I’m going to make some decisions that are going to piss you off. But there are decisions that have to be made.”

Hood’s term as the public administrator is indefinite.

When the hamlet will return to having a mayor and council is not clear as a result.

In theory, an election should be held on December 8, but Hood isn’t sure that’s something the community wants until more progress has been made and people feel more prepared to seek public office.

“They don’t feel they’re ready to actually have a mayor and council yet,” he said, acknowledging that the decision ultimately rests with the territorial government.