So this is my last day at work.
I was just leaving to school about one o'clock.
I was so happy on June 30th,
I wasn't expecting to see any of this.
I sat in a car and I watched town,
go up.
The entire town is burning up.
The whole reserve is on fire.
Holy shit, it's hot.
Wait, it's the train on fire.
Do you see that?
Jesus, it's burning.
The whole village is going.
Every where we look.
The store.
That's awful.
There was a town called Lytton.
I say was, because on June 30th,
it burned to the ground.
Our Nlaka’pamux community of what is now known as Lytton,
has been one of the longest continuously inhabited places in North America.
I've always been proud to be Nlaka'pamux,
proud to come from this area, because of the history
and because of our connection.
While the landscape is very beautiful here,
we're strategically located at the confluence
of the Thompson and Fraser rivers
and we have a unique climate, it switches into a dry air, interior.
And so we're sort of in the dry belt of the
interior of British Columbia.
I spent a lot of my time on the deck in the summertime,
I’d get my housework done in the morning and
then be able to sit out on the deck again.
And this is a picture of the Thompson
river coming in to the Fraser.
And I could lay in my bed upstairs and look up the river.
And this is a picture in front of my house too in Lytton
and this last one I don't know who took it,
but we're at the Parish Hall.
Some gathering and I'm playing the piano.
To me, I thought I sounded okay.
Yes, I miss Lytton.
I'm tearing up now.
Growing up, maybe it’s, like, every other summer
it'll be really hot and dry,
but the past, like, two summers it's been
really hot and I've noticed the weather, it's been
different, that it's changing.
I was sitting in my car, looking at, like, the whole reserve,
seeing the amount of black smoke,
I was just glad that my family and my dad
and my brother and sisters weren't at home,
to see what I have seen.
This was just the side of the house here,
but a ...
Oh my gosh.
Oh, there's all my plates.
I'm just lost for words, I don't know what to say, actually.
It's hard,
seeing the home we lived in for 47 years.
When I called my dad, I was running around outside with the hose,
going to, like, every corner and I was telling him that,
'Dad it's like we got to evacuate, towns on fire.'
All of a sudden ashes was coming down.
I noticed my neighbours trying to hook up a fire hose,
but it was going to be of no use, because the heat
was just so intense and and the fire and the wind
where just all encompassing and just disaster was upon us.
It really felt like you were in a war zone,
because I heard all the bullets exploding in my neighbour's property
and it was just so intense.
People I knew, their homes were gone,
my neighbour's home ...
And I'm like, 'What am I doing?'
What is going on right now?
Like, am I in a movie, am I still sleeping?
Because when I got home after work I was like, 'I'm gonna go have a nap.'
And I'm like, 'Is this a dream?'
I just was working out and I looked at the TV
and it was Lytton.
And that was really shocking and I honestly underplayed it
in the moment, but it became quite
significant in a really short period of time.
Yeah, it was, it was heartbreaking.
Standing on this ground and watching it green up
and that's usually what it does after a fire, it greens up
and connects you to not only the land,
but to your family and the future generations that are yet to come.
We've always said that we try to think seven generations down the road
and my role I see is being able to pass on some of the knowledge
and fill in the knowledge gaps for young people
and I've realised climate change is real and that
if we do our part to minimise things,
then we will have a chance to stay connected to this land.
Stein valley trail is within the Stein valley watershed,
it extends from, really from Lytton all the way to Pemberton.
It's a spiritual place, it is probably our most prized resource.
The Stein valley Nlaka’pamux heritage park is a protected area,
that was protected in the 90s when logging and the industry
was imposed on the land.
Our people, the Nlaka'pamux people, people from all over the province,
came together here to protect it.
If you were here last summer, this would literally be just pure salmon,
like, you could almost walk across
how much pink salmon were in this river.
We just saw a bear this morning,
that bear is going to be here in the summer, every day
for eating salmon.
I'll be here in the summer fishing salmon.
You know, everyone's gonna be here in the summer to enjoy
the abundant resources that this place provides.
This is radio NL,
we have some breaking news for you.
The Transportation Safety Board saying it has, quote,
'Not identified any links between rail companies and the deadly fire
in the village of Lytton that started on June 30th.'
Which refutes residents allegations about sparks flying
from the railway igniting the dry terrain during record heat.
Sometimes there's anger inside of me,
because to me they had no business operating a train
on that extreme heat day.
Pretty much everybody figures it was a train.
Yeah.
I figured it was a train that started it
and I'm quite sure it is.
I'm quite sure it is.
But ...
How can you prove it?
I don't know.
For more on the TSB investigation,
I'm joined by its chair, Kathy Fox.
We can't rule it out, all we can say is that based on the extensive
review of information and data collected to date,
we have found no direct link between the railway activities in the area
and the start of the fire on June 30th in Lytton.
I'm here in Kamloops, BC,
been here since July 1st.
I've been bounced around different rooms in my hotel.
Waking up having to be here,
where I don't have my family, I don't have that routine,
is exhausting.
I want to be able to escape what's happening and just
be able to sit down and be, like, this is my home, this is ...
I want to feel comfortable.
But, I'm not comfortable,
because it's not my home, I look out my window and I'm, like,
I don't see my mountains, I feel lost looking around.
Life is definitely different in the motel.
I take Oscar for a walk in the morning
and I just walk around the motel that's it now, so, yeah.
It's not the same.
Doesn't give you much hope.
Especially when you're at my age.
Hope I can get back.
Every time I come to Lytton,
it just ...
My body feels energised.
I'm feeling ...
I feel normal and this is what I miss, this is what I'm missing right now
is normality, just being normal and it's so hard and different,
to be in a different spot.
And as time goes on this is going to be my new home.
A lot of people can say
the things that we had at home is materialistic,
but the people, the connections, the area that we have
and just being here, it's just home.
Yeah.
This is our homeland and we're not going anywhere,
this is where we're meant to be.
We're going to stay here and continue to be here for millennia.