Here we are in slave lake, alberta.
[cheering & applauding]
Three hours northwest of edmonton on the shores of
Lesser slave lake, in the thick of the boreal forest,
Home to several cree nations,
A large métis population.
The town of slave lake got its name from the lake,
Lesser slave lake, which got its name
When it was at some point mistaken
For slave lake up in the territories,
Which is now called, for clarity, great slave lake.
But lesser slave lake is nonetheless home to
Slave lake and for the people of slave lake, home.
[laughing]
The beautiful wilderness
Makes it popular with tourists.
But in 2011, this town was decimated...
By a wildfire.
Fortunately, the entire community
Was evacuated safely.
So if I make jokes, keep that in mind.
My comedy act is a bit like your fire.
Nobody will get burned.
-It's still terrible... -[laughing]
But no one's getting burned.
[laughing]
When you grow up is a small town in newfoundland,
You see the people have a sense of humour
About hard times.
Check, check.
I turned that into a career and hit the road.
[mc] mr. Jonny harris!
Now I'm on a mission to find the funny in
The places you'd least expect it,
Canada's struggling small towns.
Towns that are against the ropes,
But hanging in there...
Still laughing in the face of adversity.
This is slave lake, alberta.
♪
Everyone across the country is getting a whiff of it now,
But here in slave lake,
People are used to forest fires.
Every spring, part of the boreal forest
In this region will burn.
You know, most kids across canada,
A couple of times years, they'll get a snow day.
Here, it's common for kids to get a fire day.
[laughing]
Now, it's not as fun as a snow day.
On a fire day, you don't go out and build ash forts.
[laughing]
You don't go try to catch embers on your tongue.
[laughing]
I spoke to a woman who worked the phones at
The command centre after the fire.
When people were burned out, she went all-in.
She's a little métis, a little bit cree,
And there's no greater lesser slave lake'r
Than she, chana trudel.
[cheering & applauding]
Chana explained to me that wildfires in the area
Are a fact of life, a common occurrence.
Growing up, there wasn't ever really a fire that really
Threatened the town that I'm aware of.
Right.
Like, to the point where 10 minutes out of town
There was a big fire, my family, they're like,
"let's go look at it," and we stood on
The edge of the fire, and I'm like,
This probably isn't safe,
A little 10-year-old, but okay,
This is just a part of life.
It's like there's a certain lack of fear.
Like here, with fire,
Your first instinct isn't- put it out- it's...
Check it out.
[laughing]
Well, I guess it's good for kids to-
It's educational for kids. Like in most towns,
You bring kids to see the fireworks.
Here, you bring kids to see how fire works.
[laughing]
So, I could see how, you know,
The fire of 2011 probably didn't seem much different.
People weren't overly worried.
The town, you know, is very good at responding,
And saying like, "don't worry,
We'd have like a day's notice if an
Evacuation warning to like pack a bag,
Or you'll have at the very least four hours' notice."
Chana said when she saw warning signs,
Her family figured that she was overreacting.
My father used to be an emt.
So he was like, "no, you're, you're overthinking it.
Don't even have to pack bags.
You know what, if there's an emergency,
Then they'll put us on four-hour watch."
That evening, the power went out and we were like, "oh!"
And then, the radio- they had batteries for
The radio, but the broadcast stopped.
And she was like, "okay, guys, we really got to-"
"no, you, you're overreacting.
You worry too much." and then she said...
The smoke went from like a grey to black in the smoke.
That means, like, manmade structures,
Shingles are burning.
Even then, her family was like,
"oh, black smoke, you know, maybe,
Maybe they just haven't picked a pope yet."
[laughing]
Lo and behold, the radio station had actually burnt.
Oh, my god.
So that's like right next to town.
My father, he was like, "okay, this is serious now."
The wind had switched so fast that it ripped through town.
We didn't have even a one-hour notice.
Now you've got like 6,500 people
All evacuating at once.
They couldn't get out.
And the fire- the wind was so high- it was out of control.
It was just spreading like...
[audience] wildfire.
[laughing]
That's where that comes from, okay, okay.
[laughing]
All three highways out of town were blocked by fire.
She said it was scary, you know,
They were wondering if there was going to be
Some sort of air evacuation attempted.
Or, barring that, if traffic wasn't moving,
Would you just have to run?
You know, would you just have to run and not stop run-
Run like you're boreal forest gump?
[laughing]
One place without any trees to burn was
The massive walmart parking lot.
And that's where everybody sort of convened.
The whole town was essentially
Parked in this area.
Refuge from a once-in-a-lifetime fire,
You really can find anything at walmart.
[laughing]
So, they had dropped like a whole bunch of water bombers,
Fire retardant all across the road,
And they finally cleared it enough.
In the nick of time, a plane came in- a water bomber-
And it hit the highway, and finally,
Traffic started picking up pace.
I think only in slave lake, right?
"like, oh my god, are we stuck here?"
"no, we should be alright, they just bombed the highway."
[laughing]
♪
The fire destroyed over 40% of slave lake.
A couple of weeks after,
People started to come back home-
People who were lucky enough to still have a home.
Chana told me that volunteer crews sprung into action.
And they were giving people cleanup kits,
Which included gloves and rolls of tape,
So you could get rid of your fridge.
First thing you're gonna do, is you're gonna go to
Your fridge and duct tape everything closed.
Do not open it at all.
Molds could have grown over that time.
The fridges at this point,
They were a bit like me at new year's-
They haven't worked in two weeks,
And the insides are a biohazard.
[laughing]
Chana said she and other volunteers
Worked relentlessly at the command centre.
They're on the phones talking to people, ah, ah...
Who had lost their homes,
Trying to find them somewhere to stay.
She was actually given a medal of honour
For her efforts. I think that's pretty good,
And it comes with a certificate.
-[applauding] -yeah.
You could put that on your resume and
Stick the certificate on your new fridge.
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
Though beautiful on the outside,
Slave lake has had its share of infernal struggles.
Hey, joanne, how are you?
Doing well.
I talked with one of slave lake's longest-serving
Volunteer firefighters, joanne hunter.
[cheering & applauding]
Joanne told me that the boreal forest
Is built to burn.
Fire is an everyday part of what happens in
The boreal forest for regeneration.
Pine cones need heat in order to
Pop and create new trees.
She said pine cones actually need fire and its heat
To spread their seed.
Oof, it's getting hot in here, huh.
No, but I know a thing or two about how you
Know reproductive things can cause burning.
[laughing]
And no amount of water in the world is-
You need a topical cream like an-
Anyway, it's not important.
To prevent these fires,
What you really need is education.
If you're being hugged by the boreal forest,
So if you've got trees immediately
Right around your, your home,
You might want to consider cutting some of that back.
If you're 100 feet away, and you've got a
Tin roof and you've got stucco, you know,
You're much better prepared than someone who
Might be right in the middle of the boreal forest and
Have a wood shake roof and, you know,
A pile of wood alongside their home.
Maybe don't stack dry firewood next to your house.
Try and sprinkler your grass in the spring
So that it gets nice and green.
Dead grass, that's a big one, apparently.
Like, if it's yellow, don't let it mellow, water it.
[laughing]
It really is about fire from the forest
Meeting up with an urban environment.
From that, over the years, the fire department has
Become very involved in wildland urban interface.
She told me about "wooey" training, w-u-I.
This is wildland urban interface training.
And basically, this is training for firefighters to
Combat fires that are moving from
The forest into communities.
It's about those two worlds colliding to try and
Provide structure protection, so that
We don't have happen again
What happened to us in 2011.
[sirens]
♪
Joanne gave me a little crash course on wui training.
She taught me a few techniques.
Spray back and forth.
Sweep, sweep...
Sweep.
And then you get up, you take a few paces in,
And then you can adjust the streams.
Take the tip wide, and we're gonna
Go in through that window a bit.
Go in safe, yep.
♪
Then you could change it to like a really fine jet.
And kind of dig it around a little bit.
The nozzle does the whole thing, you know.
And I think if I gave it one more click,
It might have done the like, "bah-bah,"
Like the massage setting. The, "doo-doo-doo-doo".
[laughing]
♪
Perfect.
Same principles as before.
Yep, that's it.
Mitch is over at the fire truck, and we look over,
And he's doing this-
Joanne, she explained to me after, basically, mitch,
He's watching how much water's left in the truck.
And, he's using his body like a,
Like a gauge of how much water's left.
So, this means there's 3/4 left.
I felt kind of dumb then because like,
Before I had started with the hose,
He had looked over us and he had done this.
And I looked back- I thought we were having a moment.
I looked back at him, and I was like...
-[laughing] -woo!
[applauding]
-Right on! -Awesome!
♪
Another thing I learned here at slave lake,
You can change someone's day with a pizza.
That might sound cheesy,
But I went over to the mecca of mozza
Known as alimo's, and I spoke to ali and moe mouallem.
[cheering & applauding]
The mouallem's have deep roots in this town.
They've run several restaurants.
These guys, they told me a great story.
We have a great relationship with our fire department.
They had, I think a safety meeting.
So, they tasked one of their new employees
Who had moved to slave lake from ontario.
They said, "call alimo's,
Order 18 pizzas for the meeting."
So, this guy does a quick search online,
Gets on the phone and orders 18 large pizzas from
Alamos pizza and wings
In san antonio, texas.
[laughing]
And by the time they realized the mistake,
The pizzas were already made.
So, the fire department here paid for them.
And then they donated those pizzas to the
Emergency services to the fire and to the police
In the san antonio area.
And those guys, they loved it,
And they took pictures and they were posting it
On social media and, and,
And thanking the fire department here.
And then, ali and moe decided they would donate
Some pizzas to the local hospital.
And they posted about that, and put in the hashtag
"random acts of pizza".
Well, before you know it, this is trending on twitter.
And the story goes viral.
We're getting calls from every major
News network publication,
People wanting to do, you know,
Like longform newspaper articles on it and stuff.
People literally would come to my house,
See me coming out of my truck,
And pull up beside me and give me 100 bucks
And say, "hey, donate it to your cause."
So we had like pizzas going out to people who,
Who needed pizza that day.
You know, the people in this community kind of...
You know made that happen for them.
All this came about because one guy
Called the wrong pizza place.
And really, if you think about,
It's an understandable mistake.
When you look at the names alimo's and alamos
Are "alamost" the same.
[laughing]
♪
I then met a guy who taught me that
Around lesser slave lake,
Traditional cree dancing is no passing fancy,
But fancy none the lesser.
The moves are big, less isn't more.
Stan is the man- stan isidore.
[cheering & applauding]
How did you get into it, as a kid?
I owe it all to my aunties.
I owe it all to my mom, they brought it to me.
They introduced it to me, they got me into it.
They taught me the importance of, of the dance.
Stan was explaining to me the power of dance.
He said it's about energy, and it's about healing.
Every dance that we have, as first nations people,
All have that same intent, if you will.
It's to, it's to heal, to heal ourselves
And to heal other people.
He said, you know, "dancing is medicine."
And I was like, "well, okay, but you know,
A lot of people say laughter is the best medicine."
Now, it's not a competition, it's not a competition.
[laughing]
The dance that, that I do, that I specialize in,
The dance that I've done my whole life, is called fancy.
♪ [indigenous singing & drumming] ♪
♪
The fancy dance is very flashy, it's energetic.
It's big moves.
And you have to keep up with the beat of the drum.
That beat is fast.
It's almost like a machine gun, and you got-
Your feet and your legs have to keep up with that.
The dancers, they're putting out all this energy,
And then the drummers were also singing.
It's almost like a competition.
If that drum is going too fast...
And I can't keep up, then that's one for the drum.
Right. [laughing]
Right, that's how I see it.
The drum stops and I keep going,
I didn't know it stopped, that's the one for the drum.
If the drum keeps going, and I stop, then same thing.
He said sometimes, the drummers who are also singing,
They'll change up a song a little bit,
Or change up the rhythm to try to
Trick the dancers off their-
It's a little drum trap, almost.
A snare, if you will.
[laughing]
And he said, if they manage to do that and
The dancer loses his rhythm, he said
They call that getting bucked off.
[laughing]
"bucked," I said.
[laughing]
The amount of energy he was putting in-
And this was like, it was a hot summer day.
Like, it was scorching, like if I had even tried that,
I would have dropped dead.
And on the news, they would have said,
"jonny harris died as he lived...
Trying to be fancy."
[laughing]
You credit your mom and your aunts for teaching you.
But you were obviously quite good at it,
You were chosen at quite a young age to do a tour.
My very first tour, overseas...
I was 13 years old.
He was one of about 15 dancers that were picked from
Nations across north america to go to europe.
During the trip, we ended up in England.
When they were in England, the head of the, the...
The dance troupe came, and picked stan,
And like only like two other guys for this important gig.
They take us down a few hallways,
And we go into this huge, huge room.
At the end of the hall, there's all these people
And just sitting in the middle of them...
-Was the queen. -Oh, my god.
Oh, my god. [laughing]
At the time, I didn't even know
I was dancing for the queen.
-Is that right? -I was just told...
"dance your little butt off."
He said he was told to dance his butt off...
Not by her.
[laughing]
Can you imagine being asked to dance for the queen?
At the age of 13, I was hoping to
Just get asked to dance at a dance.
[laughing]
I'd get in trouble at the school dances.
Teachers would be like, "jonny harris,
You get those hands above the waist, young man...
And for god's sake find a dance partner."
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
I was lucky enough that my visit here was during
Riverboat days, slave lake's annual summer festival.
This year the main event was a no-holds-barred
Wrestling show.
I didn't want to tussle with no slave lake muscle.
But I got into it with derri deschover.
You probably know him as local legend, tarzan hayes.
[cheering & applauding]
Derri said he was a huge wrestling fan as a kid.
You probably remember back in '97, like...
-Yeah. -How huge it was.
That's when I was just a kid,
And that kind of died down for everybody, ha.
But I kept watching it.
And then he said about a year ago,
There was a big wwe event in edmonton.
And he decided to spend some money on it,
And he bought himself front-row tickets.
He's lifting weights at this point and...
Pretty big.
And the guys were like coming like
From me to you away, right?
-Yeah. -Like, walking out, and...
I was kind of just like looking at 'em, and like,
Hm, I'm as big as these guys, and...
Like I- some of the moves they do, I can do that.
People here can probably relate to that.
I'm sure there's people right now
Sitting in the front row, going like,
"oh my god, this guy's okay.
But like, you know."
[laughing]
And before you know it, he's at a
Wrestling training school in edmonton.
I had trained, I don't know, maybe three weeks,
And the guy that owns the promotion, he said,
"yeah, we're doing a...
A royal rumble type of match."
The royal rumble starts with like
20 wrestlers in the ring.
And then they get eliminated
As they get thrown out one at a time,
A bit like a bar fight in red deer.
[laughing]
Derri's at the event, and he said...
-I was pretty nervous, man. -Yeah.
At that point, I was like, wow,
What did I get myself into?
I'm walking around dressed like tarzan.
Like, holy man, I feel like an idiot.
He said his wife was in the audience with her parents.
And his brain just started going...
Oh, I'm getting- like, my heart's beating
Thinking about it right now.
Yeah.
Like, imagine you're in the ring,
Getting your butt kicked, and you hear a woman go,
"you could do better."
[laughing]
And you realize it's your mother-in-law
Talking to your wife.
[laughing]
[mc] are we ready?!
[cheering]
Kids love this guy.
They're all cheering for him,
And trying to high five with him.
It's, it's very heartwarming.
[cheering] oh!
Derri said the real challenge though, for him,
It's the character side of getting the mic and
Doing all the smack talk.
-3! -[cheering]
I think that derri should come up with the tarzan yell,
But make it a little bit more canadian. Right?
Do like a, "eh, yeh-eh, yeh-eh...!"
[laughing]
♪
Ancient lakes and trees.
Ancient dances of the cree.
More recently, hashtag random acts of pizza.
And guys with big muscles who you wouldn't want to tussle,
But are actually quite pleased to meet ya.
Sucker punched by fire, 40% or higher
Of slave lake was burned to the ground.
People worried at the start
About the beating of its heart.
Was it doomed then to never again make a sound?
But like the flickering flame that catches,
That heartbeat rose from the ashes,
And people returned as they heard it.
And it beats to this day, in the town of slave lake,
The phoenix of northern alberta.
Thanks for coming out everybody, you've been great.
[cheering & applauding]
It was amazing, it was really fun.
♪
It was great!
♪
Jonny was such a great firefighter,
I almost gave him the locker next to mine.
♪
Definitely I'd do a powerbomb on him.
Choke slam. Yeah, anything else I can think of,
I would try on him. He's pretty little,
It'd be easy to work with.
♪
I just loved the way that he put everything together.
He definitely has a recipe for success.
♪