Saskatchewan outfitters see $4.5M in wildfire losses and rising – Saskatoon

Outfitters across Saskatchewan are looking at their next steps following a devastating summer of wildfires across the province’s north.

The Saskatchewan Commission of Professional Outfitters (SCPO) says the industry lost more than $4.5 million of revenue due to the fires.

In the past few weeks, the owners and operators of outfitters in northern Saskatchewan have been allowed to take a look for themselves.

For some, seeing the destruction has led to even more questions.

“You know, one day it’s a beautiful spot and trees and birds, and then it’s black. And you can see a bear run away for two miles because the forest is all gone. It’s wild,” said Bearadise Bay Wilderness Camp Ltd. owner Stu Rasmussen.

Rasmussen estimates he lost more than 95 per cent of his hunting land during the fires. He visited his property for the first time since the fires in late September.

Most of his buildings are still standing, but he is at a loss for what comes next in terms of rebuilding.

“We just made our initial contact, so I don’t know what that means yet. I don’t know what I’ve never had to deal with. I mean, I’ve dealt with insurance, but never dealt with it to this kind of degree,” said Rasussen.

The SCPO surveyed to review the damage. In that loss, more than half of those surveyed lost money because of the proximity to some of the fires, with 37 per cent losing habitat that will affect future years.

“This will ripple through the next two or three years because, as outfitters have to cancel their clients’ visit, then they try and accommodate them in 2026 or 2027. Which means then that they have to use spaces that they might have sold to somebody else in 2026 to carry forward that client,” said Saskatchewan Commission of Professional Outfitters CEO Roy Anderson.

The results are leading to calls for change from different levels of government in the way wildfires are managed.

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“We want to start the discussion in terms of identifying the different tiers that the ministries and the respective agencies would be interested in discussing,” said Anderson.

“A specific example would be taking a look at opportunities to centralize regulatory bans, for example, related to ATVs.”

That deficit will only continue to grow with parts of the hunting season seeing delays due to the impacts. Rasmussen worries that one of the hardest parts of the industry to repair might be a change in the tradition of where hunters go.

“It may put more hunters over into those other provinces. You know, we don’t know. That’s the scary part. We don’t know the impact,” said Rasmussen.

Rebuilding in the impacted northern communities will go beyond infrastructure. Roughly 5,000 people employed by outfitters are rethinking their job options.

“In terms of lost sales revenue, that’s going to trickle through and ripple through over the next couple of years in terms of loss of spending locally at the local businesses and loss of employment to a degree,” said Anderson.

There’s no timeline for rebuilding the communities impacted by the fires, or what assistance might be offered moving forward.

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