Lac du Bonnet warmly welcomes evacuees who wait, worry By: Nicole Buffie Posted: 7:29 PM CDT Wednesday, May. 14, 2025 Last Modified: 10:47 AM CDT Thursday, May. 15, 2025 Updates

LAC DU BONNET — McArthur Avenue in town is fairly quiet, save for the occasional pickup truck hauling a boat or trailer driving away from wildfire smoke looming on the horizon.

Lac du Bonnet’s main street shows little signs of an evacuation of more than 800 people from wildfires just 12 hours earlier.

At the legion hall, an evacuee named Betty and about 20 others are pinching perogies for their monthly fundraiser as if it’s just another Wednesday.

“The dough was already made,” says Betty, who declines to give her last name while standing near a heaping pile of potato-cheddar perogy filling. “Plus, it’s just property; none of it matters.”

Betty and Jackie, who also doesn’t want her last name published, have 250 dozen perogies to form and boil before they can even think about what’s happening near their properties.

They’re fortunate to have something to distract themselves from any news — good or bad.

Normalcy is the only way to handle a catastrophe, Jackie says.

“This is a solid community, everyone helps each other,” she says.

Not far away at Drifter’s Inn, the town’s local watering hole and hotel, a group of Lac du Bonnet firefighters takes a break from battling flames to get some lunch.

Most of them are still wearing high-visibility vests and other gear.

A passing bartender asks one how the fight is shaping up; the man shrugs in response.

Other patrons talk about how close the fire got, how close it could get and what they hope to find when they return home.

In a near-empty parking lot beside the town’s evacuation registration centre, Colleen Champagne and Collette Ans sit in lawn chairs with nothing to do but wait.

On Tuesday, Ans was cleaning her garage and blaring tunes on her stereo when her neighbour phoned and said she needed to evacuate immediately.

“I packed the dogs, their food and I didn’t pack half the stuff I should have. But we’re safe,” she says, fighting back tears.

There are rumours spreading throughout town and on social media that homes have been lost, but there is conflicting information suggesting that isn’t the case circulating, as well.

“We’ll wait and see what (the municipality) says,” Larry Flattery says. “Too many rumours on social media.”

Flattery, his wife Sandra Van Bruggen and their three-month-old pug Nikko were ordered to leave their home Along Lee River Monday afternoon as flames whipped by high winds were just metres away from the family cottage, built in 1964.

Flattery and Van Bruggen and the dog are in one of about 30 trailers parked in the Lake Life Powersports lot after mandatory evacuations from Wendigo Road, Lee River Road and surrounding areas.

“There’s going to be a lot of devastation, but everyone has each other’s backs,” Van Bruggen says.

As provincial water bombers with full buckets flew overhead, Gilles Gauthier paces outside an RCMP barricade at the junction of Provincial Roads 313 and 433, joking with neighbours.

Gauthier’s picturesque Granite Hills Golf Club and nearby liquor mart-convenience store-food takeout-driving range Granite Recreational Park were spared from the fire raging on the other side of the lake and he’s anxiously waiting to return to do maintenance on his property.

“So far so good, but it’s not over yet,” he says. “I even had people coming up to me, flames and all, asking if we still had golf open.”

Others have not been as fortunate.

Down the 313 highway, Dave Campbell patiently waits at the Wendigo Road blockade for an RCMP escort to take him to his property.

His acreage’s pasture was ravaged by flames, his 20 cattle are stranded and he needs to get them to a water source.

Luckily, he has a separate pasture and can take the herd there. And then he can turn his focus elsewhere.

“All I can do is hold the ladder for others, you know? Do my small part.”

As smoke settles across the horizon late Tuesday afternoon, residents gather around a picnic table at Lake Life Powersports for free hotdogs.

An employee scored a BBQ on the cheap from the local hardware store — courtesy of the general manager when told what it was for — and is grilling up dozens of wieners.

One resident enjoying the free late lunch, who doesn’t want to be identified, jokes about the chances of getting his money back for the grass seed he just planted, but gets emotional thinking about the Harley-Davidson motorcycles he lost in the blaze.

He provides a video showing a string of houses, including his, near Wendigo Road razed by fire Monday. The camera pans across a block of charred, black piles of soot and bare trees along the lakefront.

“It’s just stuff,” he says. “We have insurance, but we know people who aren’t so fortunate.”

Nearby, a dentist’s office is handing out toothbrushes and toothpaste to evacuees who forgot to pack their own.

“There are so many people doing their parts to make sure everything is happening,” says Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet Reeve Lorne Schinkel. “I admire all the residents and many others in the area. It’s a true effort on behalf of everyone here.”

Pointing to volunteers at the evacuation registration centre counting heads and serving meals, the firefighters and assistance from neighbouring regions, Schinkel says he is grateful for all the help and is praying for rain.

“Property can be replaced, people can’t,” he says.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca