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Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

Watch: Let’s talk about Canada’s wildfires

Canada is headed for its worst-ever wildfire season. Prairies reporter Drew Anderson hosts a lively discussion about our forests and where we go from here

What causes wildfires? How do we decide what fires we respond to and why? Why do wildfires disproportionately affect Indigenous people? And how can we best navigate our increasingly fiery reality?

Prairies reporter Drew Anderson talks to Amy Cardinal Christianson, Indigenous fire specialist with Parks Canada, John Vaillant, journalist and author of Fire Weather: The Making of A Beast and Trina Moyles, environmental journalist and author of Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest to break it all down:

Another year of keeping a close watch
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.

And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.

In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”

As the year draws to a close, we’d like to thank you for paying attention. And if you’re able to donate anything at all to help us keep doing this work in 2025 — which will bring a whole lot we can’t predict — thank you so very much.

Will you help us hold the powerful accountable in the year to come by giving what you can today?
Another year of keeping a close watch
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.

And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.

In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”

As the year draws to a close, we’d like to thank you for paying attention. And if you’re able to donate anything at all to help us keep doing this work in 2025 — which will bring a whole lot we can’t predict — thank you so very much.

Will you help us hold the powerful accountable in the year to come by giving what you can today?

Glyphosate use in B.C. forestry, explained

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