'It's home': Alberta's Métis community rebuilds settlement after wildfire
CTV
Carrol Johnston points at flowering peonies in her otherwise charred garden as she walks through her property in a northern Alberta Métis settlement.
Carrol Johnston points at flowering peonies in her otherwise charred garden as she walks through her property in a northern Alberta Métis settlement.
"That's my mommy in heaven telling me, 'Don't give up,'" says the 72-year-old, standing next to a hole in the ground where her home in East Prairie once stood.
The pink-flowered plant is one of the few things she has left since the devastating May wildfire.
Johnston, her son and daughter-in-law lost their 1,800-square-foot home and everything in it a day after they evacuated on May 5.
"It was all tears, tears, tears," Johnston, a cook at a local school, recalls of the day she found out her home of 20 years was gone overnight.
Two months later, she says she is ready to move on.
"I'm all teared out now. I know life will get better. I'm sure it will."
