Captured by Fire by Chris Czajkowski and Fred Reid

(17. - 1260.) Captured by Fire by Chris Czajkowski and Fred Reid - Fred and I grew up at Meskanaw until his family moved to British Columbia in the mid-1960's. In 2017 Fred and his partner, Monika, were living on a small farm on the west edge of the Chilcotin near the village of Anahim Lake.

Chris lives a short distance from Fred and Monika. She initially chose to evacuate, returning several times to her home to water her garden. Later she stayed home despite the fires. Her story is well told but I have decided to focus my review on the story of Fred and Monika.

Fred, Monika and Chris all spoke of a forest fire as a fire dragon.

2017 was an extremely dry summer. Fred, Monika and four volunteers were working on the farm on July 7. There were lightning strikes through the Chilcotin starting approximately 100 fires. Monika noticed a fire, designated VA0778, to the west of their place. Fred was not concerned. On July 8 he “continued to try to ignore the fire”. However:

VA0778 suddenly made its presence felt. We turned to the west as one. A dark column of smoke rose dramatically in front of the declining sun, building rapidly and arching with the soft west wind.

They were directed to evacuate but refused. While not experienced in fighting fires Fred and Monika, concerned for their garden, livestock, and home and outbuildings decided to stay.

As the fire, now called the Precipice Fire, grew friends and community members brought in equipment to help Fred and Monika fight the fire if it reached their farm.

Despite receiving a mandatory evacuation order they stay. The volunteers working on their farm go to Anahim Lake.

The fire slowly approaches them. There is no means of stopping it. They live in a remote region. The focus of the fire services was on bigger fires especially those endangering towns.

Amidst uncertainty and dread they work hard to limit fire access to their buildings. They are aided by sprinkler systems, including some provided by the government. They are daily urged to evacuate. Together with some neighbours they stay.

I had never read about how sprinklers are set up to try to protect remote properties from forest fires. 

For 8 days the fire simmers along, slowed but not stopped by the ground crews and helicopters dropping water and sometimes retardant.

On July 16 the fire breaks free and closes in on the farm from two directions.

A back burn is set up for the branch of the fire to the northwest. It is a dangerous task. The “seasoned pilot” waits for the right conditions:

Back burning is a very exact science. For it to work properly, temperatures have to be high enough, humidity must be low enough and of course the winds have to be just right.

Fred and Monika are close enough to see from their home “the flames drop toward the forest” - the ignited fuel being dropped by the helicopter to start the back burn.

Four helicopters drop water on the two fronts of the fire.

However, the fire’s front to the southwest threatens:

… near dusk we saw flames for the first time. Trees candled as the fire moved in from the southwest.

Fred and Monika are urged yet again to leave but stay.

While they defend the efforts of the Wildfire Service many of the residents of the area are upset with how the fires in the Chilcotin are being fought.

By July 22 the Wildfire Service had been battling the Precipice fire for two weeks.

Amidst the chaos of helicopters and firefighters coming and going from the farm Fred and Monika keep “weeding the garden, picking and processing endless strawberries (because we could not get out to sell them, we were putting what we did not give to the firefighters in the freezer), tending the greenhouse, milking cows and training our new calf to a halter”.

They were in constant contact with the outside world. A tower, undamaged by the fires, provided phone and internet access in their area. In the midst of a tenacious fearful fire they exchanged emails, Facebook messages and phone calls with many people.

I had never appreciated how fighting a forest fire is a grind far longer than flames flashing through an area.

For what happened on August 3 when the fire reached but 2-3 kilometres from the home of Fred and Monika, exploded into a rank five fire (fires are ranked 1-6) and the last helicopter flew away you will need to read the book. The cover photo is of that fire coming at them that day. It is a gripping draining story. I felt as if I was in the midst of the “ordeal”. The fire dragon may rest awhile puffing smoke but can suddenly erupt in rage.

I enjoyed the book while regretting Fred, Monika and Chris were captured by fire. 

Three Against the Wilderness by Eric Collier (Part II)

In my previous post I started a review of Three Against the Wilderness by Eric Collier. This post finishes the review.

The book was at its best describing how, with pick and shovel, they rebuilt beaver dams to restore the water system which brought back all manner of wildlife to the region.

I was deeply moved by the story of B.C. Wildlife Services providing them with two pairs of beavers in 1941 who swiftly built houses at Meldrum Lake. As their numbers increased other watersheds were revived and a whole forest region returned to health.

Danger is ever present in the wilderness and the Colliers had their lives at risk.

Veasy, at 6 years of age, went to check his traps across the lake. He was a good cross country skier. On his way back from his own traps Eric saw Veasy returning. Suddenly, as he was halfway across the lake, a pack of five timber wolves started following Veasy. His father, armed only with a .22, could only watch and pray that Veasy would remember his Dad’s past words not to panic around wolves which would provoke an attack. Veasy saw the wolves but did not falter. He steadily skied and the wolves steadily followed, only stopping when Veasy was about 200 yards from his father. Before they left one of the wolves “hunkered back  on the snow, and forelegs braced, lifted its nose to the sky and howled, dismal, sad, and spine-chilling”. I was as shaken as Eric.

The Colliers were literate people. They enjoyed reading. Eric had a journal.

Veasy was home schooled with a daily routine of learning under his mother’s guidance.

There was little discussion in the book that they had no neighbours which meant Veasy had no playmates. Occasionally someone would drop by their place. While they often made the 25 mile trek by wagon to get mail and supplies it was a solitary life. As I read, I wondered what Veasy thought as a teenager living out in the forest.

Transitioning from relying on live horse power to automotive horsepower was hard for Eric. How could he put his “whole faith in a vehicle which had no heart or lungs”? Veasy and Lillian convinced him to buy a used Jeep. Their trusty horse drawn wagon was never used again for trips to the store.

At 22 Veasy decided to leave his wilderness home. Eric and Lillian wished him well knowing the day was inevitable. They had the great loneliness each generation of parents experience when a child goes out into the world.

Eric’s writing is vivid and descriptive, even lyrical at times. His language and attitudes on some issues are not those of the 21st Century. At the same time he had great respect for the indigenous people of the Chilcotin and the forests where he lived with Veasy and Lillian.

My father had another connection to Eric’s decision to make his life in the forest as a trapper. Dad told me that when he was in his late 30’s his father’s health was failing and he needed to go into a home. Dad said that, had he not met my mother at that time and married, he was considering selling the farm and heading north in Saskatchewan to get a trapline and live in the forest.

The book is as fascinating and fresh to me today as it was over 40 years ago. I am glad I re-read it. I can understand why Dad listened to the saga of the Colliers hour after hour in his chair. Three Against the Wilderness took him back into the wild and his trapping memories.

****

Here is a link to stories about the book and the family with videos from an interview with Veasy. He speaks of some of the stories being accurate depictions of events while others were not. He says he never saw the wolf.

https://ericcollier.wordpress.com/conservation/dam-builders-human-animal/

****

Collier, Eric - (2025) - Three Against the Wilderness (Part I) 

Three Against the Wilderness by Eric Collier (Part I)

(16. - 1259.) Three Against the Wilderness by Eric Collier (1959) - My Dad’s favourite book. He never tired of listening to my taped recording of the book while he was in the Nirvana Nursing Home in Melfort in the 1980’s. His eyesight had failed and he could no longer read.

Dad trapped for 60 years mainly around Meskanaw from the early 1920’s to the beginning of the 1980’s. He enjoyed the challenge of trapping beavers. 

Collier during his first observation of Meldrum Creek in 1922 saw it being swept by a forest fire. He recognized that the absence of beavers had left the Creek “sick” and the surrounding area vulnerable.

Dad identified deeply with the experiences of the Collier family seeking to return beavers to Meldrum Creek. Dad knew the importance of beavers in the health of watersheds. 

Collier was from an upper middle class English manufacturing family. After a year of articling his father and the solicitor to which he was articled, recognized it was a waste of time. Collier jumped at his father’s offer to go to British Columbia in the early 1920’s where a cousin had established a ranch.

While Collier loved the rugged interior of B.C. he had no interest in ranching. While working at a trading post he met Lillian and her grandmother, Lala. Lala had grown up on the nearby reserve before marrying a white man. Collier loved talking to 97 year old Lala about the history she had witnessed including the coming of the white man. She convinced Eric that the trapping out of the beavers for trade goods had devastated the region.

It took 9 years to save enough to establish a home on the headquarters of Meldum Creek. 

Eric, his wife Lillian and his son Veasy lived next to Meldrum Creek on the Chilcotin Plateau in the interior of Brtish Columbia from 1931 to the late 1950’s.

Self-reliant they built their own log cabin from trees they had cut down. They had to be independent living 25 miles from the nearest store.

It was not a romantic life in the wilderness. They battled mosquitoes and flies in the summer and endured bitter winters where the mercury dropped to the 50 below mark at the base of their thermometer. 

The Colliers savoured the beauty of the forest, the quiet, the wild animals about them. They were content.

The stories from their lives are powerful, often visceral. They made their lives as trappers and hunters. To live off the land in the B.C. interior meant killing. They shot deer, moose, geese, partridges and other animals for food. They trapped coyotes, muskrats, weasels, mink, lynx, fishers, otter and eventually beavers for their furs.

Eric, Lillian and Veasy were all trappers. Eric had the main trapline while Lillian and Veasy each took care of a few traps.

Dad had trapped almost all of those animals. I sometimes accompanied him on his trapline as a teenager. While I was never cut out to be a trapper I enjoyed being with him. Being a trapper is an intimate way to experience the great outdoors.

Dad had another connection with Eric. Dad, as with Eric, enjoyed writing about trapping. I have a carefully handwritten journal containing instructions, tips and advice for novice trappers. An early story is about how to trap skunks.

(My next post will complete my review of Thee Against the Wilderness.)

****

Three Against the Wilderness (Part II)

Crime Writers of Canada 2025 Shortlists for Awards of Excellence and Derrick Murdoch Award Winner

It is the end of April and time for the Crime Writers of Canada announcement of the shortlists for Awards of Excellence and the Derrick Murdoch Award. The CWC news release is below.

Of the books nominated I have read Susan Juby’s book in Best Traditional and Dean Jobb’s book in Best Non-Fiction.

I am very familiar with the brilliant books of William Deverell, the winner of the Derrick Murdoch Award. He is the best writer of legal fiction in Canada. I may have a further post about him.

The Winners will be announced on May 30

Congratulations to all the nominees.

****

THE 2025 AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE SHORTLISTS

The Miller-Martin Award for Best Crime Novel

Sponsored by the Boreal Benefactor with a $1000 prize

Colin Barrett, Wild Houses, McClelland & Stewart

Jaima Fixsen, The Specimen, Poisoned Pen Press

Conor Kerr, Prairie Edge, Strange Light, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada

John MacLachlan Gray, Mr. Good-Evening, Douglas & McIntyre

Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf, Minotaur Books

Best Crime First Novel

Sponsored by Melodie Campbell with a $1000 prize

Suzan Denoncourt, The Burden of Truth, Suzan Denoncourt

Peter Holloway, The Roaring Game Murders, Bonspiel Books

Jim McDonald, Altered Boy, Amalit Books

Marianne K. Miller, We Were the Bullfighters, Dundurn Press

Ashley Tate, Twenty-Seven Minutes, Doubleday Canada

Best Crime Novel Set in Canada

Sponsored by Shaftesbury with a $500 prize

Brenda Chapman, Fatal Harvest, Ivy Bay Press

Barry W. Levy, The War Machine, Double Dagger Books

Shane Peacock, As We Forgive Others, Cormorant Books

Greg Rhyno, Who By Fire, Cormorant Books

Kerry Wilkinson, The Call, Bookouture

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery

Sponsored by Jane Doe with a $500 prize

Cathy Ace, The Corpse with the Pearly Smile, Four Tails Publishing Ltd.

Raye Anderson, The Dead Shall Inherit, Signature Editions

Susan Juby, A Meditation on Murder, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Thomas King, Black Ice, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Jonathan Whitelaw, Concert Hall Killer, HarperNorth/HarperCollins Canada

Best Crime Novella

Sponsored by Carrick Publishing with a $200 prize

Marcelle Dubé, Chuck Berry is Missing, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

Liz Ireland, Mrs. Claus and the Candy Corn Caper, Kensington

Pamela Jones, The Windmill Mystery, Austin Macauley Publishers

A.J. McCarthy, A Rock, Black Rose Writing

Twist Phelan, Aim, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Best Crime Short Story

Catherine Astolfo, Farmer Knudson, from Auntie Beers: A Book of Connected Short Stories, Carrick Publishing

Therese Greenwood, Hatcheck Bingo, from The 13th Letter, Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem, Carrick Publishing

Billie Livingston, Houdini Act, Saturday Evening Post

Linda Sanche, The Electrician, from Crime Waves, Dangerous Games, A Canada West Anthology

Melissa Yi, The Longest Night of the Year, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Best French Language Crime Book

J.L. Blanchard, La femme papillon, Fides

R. Lavallée, Le crime du garçon exquis, Fides

Jean Lemieux, L’Affaire des montants, Québec Amérique

Guillaume Morrissette, Une mémoire de lion, Saint-Jean

Johanne Seymour, Fracture, Libre Expression

Best Juvenile / YA Crime Book

Sponsored by Superior Shores Press with a $250 prize

Sigmund Brouwer, Shock Wave, Orca Book Publishers

Meagan Mahoney, The Time Keeper, DCB Young Readers

Twist Phelan, Snowed, Bronzeville Books, LLC

David A. Poulsen, The Dark Won't Wait, Red Deer Press

Melissa Yi, The Red Rock Killer, Windtree Press

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book

Sponsored by David Reid Simpson Law Firm (Hamilton) with a $300 prize

Denise Chong, Out of Darkness: Rumana Monzur's Journey through Betrayal, Tyranny and Abuse, Random House Canada

Nate Hendley, Atrocity on the Atlantic: Attack on a Hospital Ship During the Great War, Dundurn Press

John L. Hill, The Rest of the [True Crime] Story, AOS Publishing

Dean Jobb, A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Tanya Talaga, The Knowing, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Best Unpublished Crime Novel manuscript written by an unpublished author

Sponsored by ECW Press with a $500 prize

Robert Bowerman, The Man in The Black Hat

Luke Devlin, Govern Yourself Accordingly

Delee Fromm, Dark Waters

Lorrie Potvin, A Trail's Tears

William Watt, Predators in the Shadows

DERRICK MURDOCH AWARD RECIPIENT

The Derrick Murdoch Award is a special achievement award presented at the discretion of the Board Chair of Crime Writers of Canada. It recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to developing crime writing in Canada.

Crime Writers of Canada is also pleased to announce William H. Deverell, a distinguished Canadian novelist, activist, and criminal lawyer, as the recipient of the 2025 Derrick Murdoch Award.

Deverell’s bibliography includes nineteen novels, many drawing from his extensive legal experience. Notable works include Trial of Passion, which earned the Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing in 1997 and Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Canadian Crime Novel in 1998. Trial of Passion introduced readers to Arthur Beauchamp, QC, a character who became central to a series that includes titles such as April Fool (2003 Arthur Ellis award winner) and Kill All the Judges. He is the author of A Life on Trial – The Case of Robert Frisbee, based on a notorious murder trial in which he was defense counsel.

Street Legal, which aired on CBC Television from 1987 to 1994, was the longest-running one-hour scripted drama in the history of Canadian television. The show was based on an original pilot, Shellgame, which Deverell authored.

Beyond his writing, he continues to be a pivotal figure in Canadian literature, inspiring readers and mentoring emerging Canadian writers within the crime and mystery genres.

Deverell is the founder and honorary director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. He served as chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada in 1994 and 1999 and is a life member of the Writers Guild of Canada, a Member Emeritous of Crime Writers of Canada and a member of PEN International.