Until last Sunday, Aug. 2, I’d never seriously considered packing spare food, cash, fuel or a satellite phone on road trips.

That changed after I found myself among nearly 18,000 East Kootenay residents living between Golden and Canal Flats who had lost power due to wildfire-related damage to BC Hydro’s transmission systems.

I set out the day before for Radium Hot Springs to explore Kootenay National Park. I’d never been south of Golden, making the experience full of excitement and the unfamiliar.

I filled up the vehicle with gas in Golden before stopping at Radium’s visitor centre for hike recommendations. All that came up were limited mountain views due to smoke from the fire. The nearest wildfires I knew of were 150 kilometres away near Kimberley — surely not of concern.

After returning from the park that evening, I went to a local restaurant and had just placed my dinner order when the power went — twice.

“It’s the fires,” the bartender told me.

Eating my fish, chips and Caesar salad in the dark, I checked BC Hydro’s power outage map. Nothing was posted for Radium.

In Revelstoke, I’d learned outages weren’t uncommon but usually resolved themselves overnight. I figured as much for Radium. The restaurant couldn’t charge customers on its card machine, so I happily used most of my cash to settle up.

I woke up at dawn Sunday after a rocky sleep in my Subaru, excited for a coffee and another hike. The cafés didn’t open. Had their schedules changed? No, one owner told me — the power was still out.

I tried to check my phone for BC Hydro updates, but most of Radium was a dead zone for my provider. I considered my inventory: no breakfast or coffee, but enough water and more than half a tank of gas. I headed back into the park for the morning.

What food I did have left — lemon loaf, veggies, apple and trail mix — I’d consumed by noon during my hike. Driving along Highway 93 back to Radium, I saw long bursts of traffic heading the other way for Banff.

“What’s the hurry in the middle of the long weekend?” I wondered.

I was excited to finally get that coffee and lunch back at one of the Radium cafés. However, they remained closed. The more I paid attention to my surroundings, the more I realized everything was closed, including the gas stations. The brewery, ice cream shop and a convenience store were the only businesses visibly open.

I used the rest of my cash in my wallet to buy snacks from the slim pickings on the gas station shelves: granola bars, Fresca and Snickers, because “you’re not you when you’re hungry.” Around me, families were setting up camping chairs and sleeping arrangements. One poor fellow, bogged down without enough gas to leave the region, graciously filled me in on the situation.

“It’s all good, I’ll just go to Golden,” I shrugged.

“Golden doesn’t have power either,” he quickly answered. “I’m pretty sure the closest gas stations available are in Banff and Lake Louise.”

I froze. That’s why everyone was taking Highway 93 to Alberta. I hadn’t considered leaving enough gas to make it farther than Golden. I was quickly paying the price for my naiveté. If I’d known sooner that the outage was impacting half the Columbia Valley, I may have reconsidered burning fuel for my Sunday hike. I may have altogether chosen to turn back for Revelstoke first thing that day, with the food and fuel I’d still had.

I devoured granola bars and contemplated my fuel gauge. I had plenty of gas to drive 100 km to Golden, but getting another 150 km to Revelstoke was a stretch. I needed to leave Radium to have phone service and be able to contact my family and friends.

I watched my gauge painstakingly closely. I drove 20 km/h under the posted limit to get as much distance from each litre.

After rolling into Golden, I contacted my parents and explained I was left with a quarter tank of gas. My mother concluded I couldn’t safely reach Revelstoke. Stay the night and beg the hotels and guesthouses for a bed, she suggested. With no cash left or card-accepting businesses open for me to buy food, though, I dismissed the option to stay.

BC Hydro’s Sunday update advised that the soonest power might be restored was that night. Ultimately, most of the nearly 18,000 Columbia Valley customers left in the dark had power back by morning, while a couple hundred in Golden continued to wait.

I didn’t know that on Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t prepared to wait out the outage for another night. Besides, the lineups at gas stations would be lengthy.

I messaged a reliable Revelstoke friend group to ask whether anyone could fill up four gallons of fuel and meet me halfway in Rogers Pass. It was a big ask on a long weekend evening, especially for someone to drive 135 km round trip. Fortunately, one friend was passing through Golden anyway en route to Jasper.

As I waited for my gas to arrive, calmly reading my book, I looked at the dozens of families lined up at the gas stations, rationing their food and drinks, looking for the nearest toilet. After my friend dropped off the cans, a woman passed by with an ice cream as I gassed up the Subaru.

“You’re smart,” she admired.

I wasn’t, though. I was exceptionally lucky, despite my lack of preparedness and common sense, and my ignorance toward how wildfires were impacting the world around me.

I clarified to the woman I’d been fortunate to have a friend coming from Revelstoke. I joked that I wished I was as smart as her, having cash on hand for an ice cream. She stopped, reached for her wallet, and handed me a fiver.

“Get yourself an ice cream before she closes,” she said, nodding her head toward Big Cones Ice Cream. I resisted.

“I was only joking,” I said, looking at my abundance of gas and the lack thereof among everyone else around me. “I don’t deserve this.”

“Just take it,” she insisted.

Didn’t she need the cash?

“We’re military,” she explained.

They’d be getting picked up soon. I bought a scoop of cheesecake ice cream and hit the road as the sun set over the Columbia Mountains.

It’s easy to feel prepared, until you notice what you’re missing and realize you’re deeper in trouble than perceived. It’s easy to feel well-supplied in a rural community and miss telltale signs to stock up or leave, until extreme weather such as wildfire strands you.

A cross-Canada survey this spring found 79 per cent of B.C. respondents worry about being affected by wildfires, but only 43 per cent know their local evacuation routes and 35 per cent have an emergency kit.

I thought I was prepared. In my vehicle, I had a spare tire, water, clothes, blankets, a portable phone charger, and a backpack of supplies I needed to survive in the woods for a night or two. But I learned where I fell short: emergency food, a satellite phone, extra cash and perhaps a can of fuel.

My trip to the Columbia Valley taught me the importance of planning for the inevitability of emergency, rather than the possibility.

As we see thousands of British Columbians put on evacuation alert and hundreds displaced by wildfires this summer, the time to start planning — no matter how distant we think we are from it all — is now.

Evert Lindquist is a journalist with the Revelstoke Review.