I GREW UP IN SKEETCHESTN, a small riverside community northwest of Kamloops, British Columbia, in a home with no running water and no power. My family used fire for everything: to cook, to heat bathwater and to dry our clothes. Fire also served a ceremonial purpose for my people—in sweat lodges, at funerals and as a spiritual offering. Elders would often tell me stories about how, for centuries, Indigenous people across Canada set fire to the earth, so it would look after us in return. These cultural burns, as we call them, were a tool for land management. In the cool of early spring and late fall, fire keepers would light controlled burns using pitchwood or handfuls of long grass, renewing the soil where berries and other medicines grew and…
