As Garth and Linda Carman were leaving their Hay River home due to an encroaching wildfire last month, they were faced with a hairy animal welfare issue: what to do with almost a dozen cats.
“It was all kinds of haphazard,” said Garth. “We weren’t in any way prepared to move them.”
When the wildfire on the K’atl’odeeche First Nation forced the evacuation of around 3,500 people in May from both the reserve and the town of Hay River, the Carmans stepped up to help by transforming their garage into an emergency shelter for felines belonging to people forced to leave their homes.
“Everybody tried to help out,” said Garth. “Everybody’s good at something — I’m just good at cats.”
With the community under an evacuation order, the couple went door-to-door rescuing stranded pets. Between their efforts and ‘other people calling and dropping off cats as well’, they rescued a total of 11 felines, said Garth.
As the wildfire continued to grow in size, they made the executive decision to relocate the shelter to their future son-in-law’s residence near the Hay River Golf Course, which was several kilometres away.
“We ended up having to move everything out to his place,” he added. “That was really last-minute because we didn’t expect to have to evacuate.”
Thinking outside the box, the couple got to work improvising cat carriers.
“We ended up putting cats and all kinds of different containers,” said Garth. “We ended up stuffing some of them in Tupperware containers, footstools, laundry baskets, Ottomans, everything duct taped shut.
“We were really scrambling trying to find room for them but we had it all under control,” he continued.
As they were leaving for the new location, the couple received an unexpected call from a desperate pet owner who had left five cats in a Hay River residence.
“She had us get into her house and we grabbed them up and rescued them,” said Garth.
In their determined efforts to help the community’s kitties, the couple turned the new location into a makeshift shelter for cats with blankets, toys, and food for hungry felines.
“Some of them were actually pretty cool cats,” said Garth about the litter, which included a semi-feral Norwegian Forest feline named Smokey who was ‘a real character’.
“I really enjoyed having him but he was not a tame cat any stretch of imagination,” he said.
The Carmans eventually evacuated to Yellowknife, leaving the pets in the care of their future son-in-law and other volunteers.
The whole operation has since closed down and all of the four-legged evacuees have been reunited with their owners, Garth said.
“We had a lot of people dropping off food and supplies,” he added. “It wasn’t just us. There are many people that help out as best they can.”
The Carmans, who first volunteered as animal rescuers after last year’s historic flood, recommenced their efforts to do the same again this year.
He said the service takes a lot of stress off the people who have these cats, especially when you have to leave very quickly like that.
“And I don’t mind looking after them,” he said. “Other than the hassle of having to pick them up when you’re trying to evacuate, it’s actually quite enjoyable. And if we go through this again next year, I’ll still be here helping cats.”