{"id":900969,"date":"2026-09-18T22:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/900969\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T22:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:44:09","slug":"north-bay-man-recounts-wildfire-experience-as-climate-caravan-stops-in-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/900969\/","title":{"rendered":"North Bay man recounts wildfire experience as climate caravan stops in city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Pipe was one of several residents who attended the Seniors\u2019 Climate Witness Caravan stop in North Bay<\/p>\n

Daniel Pipe cares about the environment, but he got a scary view of Mother Nature\u2019s fury this summer while canoeing in Wabakimi Provincial Park near Thunder Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been concerned with climate warming for a long time, but this summer, something happened to me that really brought it home,\u201d said Pipe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was on a canoe trip, and we became entrapped in what became the largest forest fire in Ontario history. And we spent the night on a rocky point of land, immersed in the water for a lot of it, wondering if we would ever see the dawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I remember thinking when I was lying there in the water, we have done this. Us, you and I, and everyone else, in the industrialized world. And it\u2019s disheartening to think that a lot of the climate change we see now is locked in by emissions that were emitted 20 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

See:\u00a0Thunder Bay 36 largest wildfire in Ontario history \u2014 by far<\/a><\/p>\n

Pipe was one of a number of environmentalists who gathered at the Canadian Tire EV station in North Bay Friday morning as part of the Seniors\u2019 Climate Witness<\/a> Caravan.<\/p>\n

Michael Polanyi is the co-founder of Seniors\u2019 Climate Witness, a cross-country caravan of seniors travelling in electric vehicles. The caravan started in Victoria, B.C., in early September, with stops in Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay.<\/p>\n

The group describes the trip as the first-ever electric vehicle caravan of seniors.<\/p>\n

Organizers say the caravan is calling on the federal government to reject new fossil fuel pipelines, uphold its climate commitments, respect Indigenous rights and invest in clean energy and climate resilience.<\/p>\n

Polanyi said the group has been hearing climate change stories from residents along the journey to Ottawa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard a story here about somebody who was evacuated by a fire and almost lost their life this summer,\u201d said Polanyi, referring to Pipe.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo climate change is affecting North Bay. It\u2019s affecting Sudbury. It\u2019s really affecting all Canadians, and we want to hear as many stories as possible, and we\u2019re collecting as many photos as possible to take to Parliament next week, so that politicians, when they\u2019re making decisions about energy policy, other economic policies, they\u2019re keeping in mind the human face of the climate emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pipe\u2019s experience has strengthened his passion for calling on the government to hasten the conversion to green energy sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we really have to take a longer-term view of this, and I\u2019m glad to see the people who are, let\u2019s say, older than average, have the means to do that, because we\u2019ve lived, we\u2019ve lived for a few decades, and we can think about a longer term,” said Pipe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We can think about people in future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polanyi echoed those concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard a lot of stories from grandparents, very concerned about their experience of their grandkids\u2019 experiences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo some talking about grandkids just sort of very sad about not being able to go outside because of the smoke. Grandkids who are telling their grandparents, they don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to get to our age. They\u2019re just scared because of the situation in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The western and eastern caravans are expected to converge in Ottawa on Sept. 19, where organizers have planned a series of public events, including a Global Climate March, public witness events, a Peace & Climate Rally and nonviolent-action training.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re asking our leaders to invest in good jobs and a safe future\u2014not in the burning of fossil fuels that will cause even more devastating heat and wildfires,\u201d added Polanyi.<\/p>\n

The group says its Ottawa events will coincide with the return of Parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Pipe was one of several residents who attended the Seniors\u2019 Climate Witness Caravan stop in North Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,311682,295,66],"class_list":["post-900969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-climate-changewildfireseniors-climate-witness","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}