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Russell Wangersky photo<\/p>\n
The sun breaks through the clouds in Gusset\u2019s Cove.<\/p>\n
From other areas, maybe we will eventually sample sorrel: it depends on how close they were to the house or shed or anything else that burned. And so very much burned. The province has said gardens are safe from contamination by fire-retardant chemicals as nothing has shown up in tests. But we know what way the wind was blowing \u2014 what burned, and where, is always part of the equation. It\u2019s a strange calculation to make: I\u2019m just glad our house wasn\u2019t heated with fuel oil, was too old to contain asbestos, and didn\u2019t have indoor plumbing for decades.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the sorrel that has come rampaging back. This year\u2019s blueberries, even in the burnover, were amazing and areas that were burned in the first major fire, in May 2025, are recovering, at least at ground level. The August 2025 fire burned much longer and much hotter: it will be years for the areas it burned thoroughly to recover. For comparison, the May fire burned 12 homes; August, 200.<\/p>\n
But areas from the May fire \u2014 a flash fire of wind-blown brush and conifers (most deciduous trees hadn\u2019t leafed out yet and survived without burning) \u2014 are recovering, at least at your knees or below.<\/p>\n
Our red currant bush burned flat to the ground, but came back strong this year. Nature being nature, though, a late-summer infestation, gooseberry sawfly caterpillars the most likely culprit, removed much of the leaves, only skeletal stalks remaining.<\/p>\n
There are bushy weeds throwing up bouquets of what look like small snapdragons \u2014 I think \u201csmall snapdragon\u201d suits them much better than their formal name, Yellow Toadflax, which sounds like a fantasy novel villain. Riots of wild yarrow and asters have taken advantage of having the competing long grass and ground roses burned away and nod together in the wind on shore headlands.<\/p>\n
Almost everywhere, ranks of goldenrod and fireweed compete to block each other out, but while the goldenrod seems to be winning the hand-to-hand combat, the fireweed is clearly winning the aerial battle.<\/p>\n
On windy sunny days, the air is full of the cast-out parachutists of fireweed seed fluff \u2014 even in the bad burn scars, you sometimes catch sight of the low-transiting fireweed seeds, light enough to carry for miles, ready with as little as a slight wind shift or a windrow of burned branches to settle and colonize. A riot of pink and fuchsia awaits, as early as next year.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know whether to be pleased or discouraged. In some ways, the ground is recovering faster than I would have expected. In other ways, it is perhaps not paralyzingly slow, but frustratingly methodical and lock-stepped.<\/p>\n
There are saplings fighting their way up through the wreckage already \u2014 small eager firs still in their perfect Christmas-tree cone shapes, not yet individualized by a snapped-off branch or broken candle tip, along with the single gawky stalks of first-year poplars. But they will not be adult trees in my lifetime. I could plant new apple trees and nurture them carefully, but I might never see them bear fruit.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Russell Wangersky photo<\/p>\n Yellow Toadflax near Adam\u2019s Cove, Nfld.<\/p>\n You will know this, too, if you don\u2019t already. A point comes when you realize that all around you, friends and acquaintances are running into the cruelty of statistics. <\/p>\n A certain number find that the great bingo caller has stamped their card with prostate issues or cardiac problems. Others hear the message, \u201cunder the C, cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n Other are dealt much-less common things \u2014 how unfair it must be to be dealt a diagnosis for something so out of the ordinary that you\u2019ve never even heard its name before. <\/p>\n And then, having that sinking feeling of finding your future in fear-quickened internet research. Dr. Google is completely without bedside manner.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no longer a surprise when an acquaintance is diagnosed \u2014 it\u2019s a tick of the clock.<\/p>\n A dear friend explained it to me simply: \u201cIt feels like you\u2019re always running to escape a sharpshooter.\u201d<\/p>\n I get it. The never knowing who is next. The knowing that you can just as easily be right there, fixed in the sights for the next shot.<\/p>\n You wonder often if it\u2019s not more important to be greedier about whatever time you have. Not because you\u2019ve been hit, but because you don\u2019t know if someone or something has taken aim.<\/p>\n This is a long and perhaps too florid way of saying I\u2019ve stepped away from being the Comment Editor at the Free Press. It was time to stop marking time.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Russell Wangersky photo<\/p>\n Yarrow and asters growing on a headland overlooking Adam\u2019s Cove.<\/p>\n \n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t Do you really need fireweed seeds and sorrel to explain leaving your job? Well, I do.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll still be writing for the Free Press in this space and others, as required. I\u2019ll still be doing other writing as well, whether it\u2019s a more-frequent appearance on Substack \u2014 rwangersky@substack.com, where I write a series called Found in Place \u2014 or my other work as a fiction and non-fiction writer. (My latest collection of short stories, We Had Years, published by Biblioasis, is scheduled to come out in November.)<\/p>\n And I\u2019ll still be musing in print on everything from Manitoba politics to the perspective of lying on my stomach in the yard, watching the way the fireweed fluff tumbles panjandrum through the stalks of grass.<\/p>\n Keeping my head down.<\/p>\n Russell Wangersky is a writer and columnist \u2014 and a journalist for 42 years \u2014 who splits his time between Winnipeg and Adam\u2019s Cove, Nfld.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Russell Wangersky Russell Wangersky is Perspectives Editor for the Winnipeg Free Press, and also writes editorials and columns. He worked at newspapers in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Saskatchewan before joining the Free Press in 2023. A seven-time National Newspaper Award finalist for opinion writing, he\u2019s also penned eight books. Read more about Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n Russell oversees the team that publishes editorials, opinions and analysis \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.<\/p>\n \t\t
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