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00:00Here we are in Flin Flan, Manitoba!
00:05Flin Flan, surrounded by beautiful Boreal forest here in northern Manaskatchewan.
00:14Flin Flan is truly a border town of Manitoba and Saskatchewan,
00:19especially if you include the communities of Creighton and Dinair Beach,
00:22which we will be, as we will be talking about what I will call the Tri-City area of Greater
00:28Flin Flan.
00:31We were actually set to shoot this episode when, as I'm sure you remember, things around here got pretty hot.
00:40On May 28, 2025, a mandatory evacuation was called, a successful evacuation, I'm glad to say.
00:51I was a bit confused because one of my producers told me we were cancelling the trip,
00:56and when I said, why? And she said, that place is on fire.
01:01But, she's Gen Z, I thought that was like a good thing.
01:07Right, like it's on fire, like totally slay, it's on fire.
01:12When you grow up in a small town in Newfoundland, you see the people have a sense of humor about
01:16hard times.
01:18I turned that into a career and hit the road.
01:22Now I'm on a mission to find the funny in the places you least expected.
01:26Canada's struggling small towns.
01:28Towns that are against the ropes, but hanging in there.
01:31Still laughing in the face of adversity.
01:33This is Flin Flon, Manitoba.
01:50Long before you made headlines with forest fires this summer, Flin Flon was known mostly for producing rock-hard hockey
01:58players and hard rock mining.
02:01And, let's face it, probably a lot of Canadians know the name Flin Flon for the name itself.
02:06It's, I don't want to make Flon of it, but it's unusual.
02:20What is somebody from Flin Flon called?
02:23Flin Flonian, I guess.
02:24Flin Flonian.
02:25To tell me about mining minerals and how the town's novel name came about, I had a chat with retired
02:33miner Ken Polchuk.
02:39Ken told me in 1915 a prospector by the name of Tom Creighton came up north looking for gold.
02:47And fortunately he was introduced to a Métis trapper.
02:50A guy named David Collins was a rock collector also. He used to collect shiny rocks.
02:55It took two people, one guy to find the rocks and one guy to distinguish what it was.
02:59Tom Creighton put claims in on it.
03:02But when he was asked what he wanted to call his claim, he named it after a fictitious character in
03:09a sci-fi novel he randomly found in the bush.
03:13Tom Creighton found a book called The Sunless City.
03:16And in The Sunless City there was a story about this character, an eccentric scientist kind of.
03:21And that character's name?
03:23Josiah Flintibatty Flauniton.
03:26That's a mouth full.
03:27Say it again.
03:28Josiah Flintibatty Flauniton.
03:30Or to his friends, Flin Flon.
03:33There's a great statue down by the museum, but I was told if you looked at it from a certain
03:40angle, Flinti's thumb looks like not his thumb.
03:48I didn't see it at first.
03:50And I'm like, somebody's pulling my leg.
03:51This is nonsense.
03:53And then I look at it and...
03:55I was wrong.
03:59In fact, I was humbled.
04:05Ken told me that back in the 1930s it was the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company that decided to
04:12go all in on Flin Flon.
04:14I mean, it was a massive, massive operation.
04:17Ken said people came here from all over the world.
04:20They were pioneers.
04:21There were people that were kicked out of Russia.
04:23There were people that came from Europe.
04:26Scandinavians and Ukrainians and Polish people.
04:29A true melting pot of white people right from the get-go.
04:35The company knew that it was going to struggle to keep workers here in a remote area if things were
04:42all work no play.
04:43They would look for sports people.
04:46They would look for arts people.
04:47Because if you didn't have entertainment, people wouldn't stay here.
04:51Artists and athletes, hockey players were particularly sought after and were paid to play for the Flin Flon Bombers.
04:59There's about 17 or 18 guys that went into the NHL.
05:03Sid Abel.
05:04Eric Nestoranko.
05:05Of course, Bobby Clark.
05:07Got drafted to Philadelphia.
05:08And that's history.
05:09Like two years.
05:10Two Stanley Cups.
05:11Now they were also looking for artists.
05:13Although Ken said he considers hockey players to be artists.
05:18They're artists in their own...
05:19I mean, if you define art as, you know, a creative, beautiful performance.
05:25That's what it is.
05:26Although I suppose it depends on how you define artists.
05:28I mean, if you drop the gloves with Bobby Clark, he could turn you into a Picasso.
05:38Once the mine we drove by there ran out of ore, basically, they had to close and then they transferred
05:45everybody to Snow Lake.
05:46In 2022, the last mine, the 777, closed down.
05:52People have moved away and it's changed the community. It did.
05:57However, exploration continues all over the area.
06:00We didn't take all the copper and zinc out of the ground in this area.
06:03We took a lot of it out, but there's a lot more.
06:06I don't think we're done.
06:08Ken holds out hope that mining will come back to Flin Flon, which everybody would love to see, except perhaps
06:15for the Flin Flon bombers.
06:17I don't know any hockey player who wants to be sent back down as a miner.
06:31The summer of 2025 is a time nobody here in town will ever forget when a series of four major
06:39fires joined forces to create one massive inferno that moved toward Flin Flon when the entire community of Dinero Beach
06:47was forced to evacuate.
06:48Johnny.
06:50I'm Carrie.
06:51I met a woman who had an interesting strategy for stress during the wildfire evacuation. Carrie Lentowitz.
07:02We're at the remains of my home. Most of it's been taken away.
07:08The fire came in like a blowtarch with its own lightning, formed its own weather.
07:14Her house was one of the 230 homes and 400 structures that were lost to the fire in Dinero Beach
07:20alone.
07:21I was fortunate to have something to lose. There's a lot of people who didn't. Nobody was hurt.
07:25Yeah, that people evacuated successfully.
07:28Everybody I ever talked to that's been through a mandatory evacuation, they're always amazed in hindsight at what they chose
07:35to bring or even more so what they did not bring.
07:38Because I've got a big background in disaster and emergency management, I took some things that were high value, but
07:46all the things that cost nothing meant more.
07:49Really?
07:50Yes, a wool blanket that I made with my friend's mom who's since passed, card from my cook'em.
07:55Yeah, little things like that.
07:56Cook'em.
07:57It means grandmother in Cree.
07:58Okay.
07:59I can't imagine what it's like if you're leaving your home, you can only take so much stuff and you
08:03think I might never be here again.
08:05I mean, I start panic packing every time I go on the road.
08:09When I came here, the taxi for the airport's in the driveway, I'm rifling through random drawers.
08:14Meanwhile, I haven't packed any socks or underwear.
08:16I'm grabbing random, I'm going like, oh my god, you know, it's northern Manitoba, maybe I'll need wood glue.
08:24Throw that in my bag and...
08:26You're not thinking straight.
08:29Wood glue, which by the way, is not a cream or gel airport security.
08:40And I went and I walked around that area and it is eerie, all these empty lots where homes once
08:46stood.
08:46But I have to say, obviously the first part of the rebuild is cleaning up and I was amazed by
08:52how much of that has been done already.
08:58It's only been three months and the place is completely cleared out.
09:02I went up to where they brought all that, the mangled wreckage, they've got a huge mountain of it.
09:08They've got what looks like an amazing amount of stuff, trees and concrete and metal.
09:16Then you think there's over 200 homes in those piles.
09:20It's all burnt black and rust brown and you kind of can't make anything almost like one of those 3D
09:27eye puzzle books.
09:28You can't really make it and then you focus and you're like, oh my god, that's a truck chassis.
09:33The fact that they've hauled it all out, it speaks to the incredible effort to get people's property cleared and
09:41ready to rebuild.
09:42Will you rebuild here?
09:44Absolutely, 100%.
09:46The beauty is still here. The reason I'm here is still here.
09:49Nature gives me what I need to do my stress relief, like my birch bark biting, which I took with
09:55me and do on the road to keep me from being distracted.
09:59And Carrie said that as she was driving out during the evacuation, one thing she did to battle stress, she
10:05was chewing on birch bark.
10:06Basically, you peel bark and you bite designs into it.
10:10She is Cree and birch bark biting is a traditional art form.
10:15This is one here.
10:16You did not do that with your teeth.
10:18Yeah, so if you hold it up to the light, you can see the pattern in it.
10:23Oh my god.
10:23She showed me how it's done. So we've got this birch bark.
10:26Yeah, how do you get a piece of birch bark like this without damaging it?
10:30Very carefully.
10:31Yeah.
10:32You fold it in different ways to result in different patterns.
10:35It's incredibly intricate, all just made out of these tiny little bites.
10:39You want to bite hard, but not too hard.
10:41You look like you're chewing it like a little mouse.
10:45I don't have very good teeth.
10:47That's one thing I got from my British father was bad teeth.
10:52My teeth don't line up.
10:53When I eat something, my teeth don't meet.
10:56They don't chop off the food.
10:58I got an overbite.
10:59So I just sort of like grab the food and then I twist.
11:02Like a crocodile grabs the food and rolls around.
11:07Okay.
11:08Finish that line all the way to the side and then you're going to do the same on the other
11:11side.
11:11You can do this.
11:12I have faith.
11:13But also I'm worried that there's wood chips that'll chip my teeth away.
11:17And if the wood chips could chip, how much wood would the wood chips chip?
11:22Basically, I'm biting birch bark and I'm worried birch bark is going to bite back.
11:28Let's see what you came up with.
11:29Oh my God, George, this is a perfect flower.
11:32After like five minutes, Carrie unfolds hers in this beautiful intricate flower.
11:40And I unfolded my birch bark and let's just say my bark was worse than my bite.
11:57If you're here in Flin Flon and you love drive-in movies, you are winner winner chicken dinner.
12:06The wildfires came, but they're still surviving.
12:09I talked with the owners of Big Island Drive-In, Dan and Don Halady.
12:18The Big Island Drive-In is the most northerly drive-in theater in North America.
12:24We are the only screen, four hours radius.
12:27Only movie place, indoor or outdoor?
12:30Yes.
12:30Within four hours.
12:32Wow, okay.
12:33And running an outdoor theater this far north comes with certain challenges.
12:37In June, we're playing movies at 11 o'clock at night.
12:41Starting movies.
12:42Starting trailers at 11 o'clock at night.
12:44Really?
12:45This far north.
12:46It doesn't just get dark late, it gets light early.
12:50Like I said to Dan, I said, if you start a double header at 11 p.m., when does it
12:56end?
12:57And he said, to tell you the truth, Don.
13:01And I said, okay, Don, tell me the truth, if you start a double header at 11 p.m., perhaps
13:10an even bigger draw than the movies themselves is the food.
13:14They got popcorn, gourmet pretzel and ice cream.
13:18And the classic pickled eggs.
13:21It's a recipe and an item that we inherited when we bought the place.
13:25Yes.
13:26This was something the previous owner told them they had to do.
13:29Flynn Flanians demanded you have to offer pickled eggs.
13:33We go through hundreds of these every couple of weeks.
13:36I don't think I've ever seen a pickled egg at a movie.
13:40I was amazed by this, but Don had some there, so I tried the pickled egg.
13:44Cheers.
13:44Cheers.
13:45Cheers.
13:48I'm down with the pickled egg.
13:49Mm-hmm.
13:51Mm-hmm.
13:51Like, once a year.
13:55Maybe.
13:55I thought the birch bark had bite.
13:58That pickled egg.
14:00But if you want to take the edge off your pickled egg, a popular choice among locals is to have
14:05a pickled egg smothered in melted nacho cheese.
14:10That is a thing here.
14:12And I can prove it, because I brought one.
14:17A pickled egg smothered in nacho.
14:20This is perfect for the person who's on a date they don't want to be on.
14:28Imagine you're on a date, and the person you're with is like,
14:30Hey, do you want to get in the back seat?
14:33Yeah, sure.
14:34Just let me finish my nacho cheese smothered pickled egg.
14:44Still want to get in the back?
14:56I asked him about the fire this summer.
14:58Dan told me they evacuated to Saskatoon, and then he saw pictures on social media of firefighters
15:06at the end of a long, exhausting day.
15:09They were cooking their own supper.
15:12And that's when I talked to Don, and I said, you know, like, I'm needed back.
15:18He got some supplies, he got back in the car, and he headed back to town.
15:23Eventually, Don came and joined him, and they spent the next few weeks,
15:27they worked 16 hours a day, feeding 350 firefighters the best food they could get their hands on.
15:35What kind of stuff were you whipping up?
15:37Ah, everything from eggs benedict in the morning, pastas at lunch.
15:42Stews.
15:42Roast beef, prime rib at night time.
15:45And they're thanking us, and it's like, but I gotta thank you, right?
15:49Right.
15:49You're in that heat of the moment, you're going out there.
15:51Don said firefighters, on their way out in the morning,
15:54they'd stop by and say, like, oh, what's for dinner?
15:57And just that, it just brought a little bit of humanity back to this situation.
16:02The fact that these guys are about to go out and do a dangerous, exhausting, hot, uncomfortable job.
16:10The fact that even a small part of your brain might be looking forward to dinner,
16:15like dinner might be nice, had to mean the world.
16:20Dan said evacuees, homeowners, business owners were calling him saying, the key is under the mat.
16:27I could show tons of messages, go into my house, go into my business, take whatever you need.
16:32Feed those guys.
16:33That's awesome.
16:33Feed those guys.
16:34It was huge community support.
16:36But it's a great story, and one that I've heard not just from them, from other people in town,
16:40who really appreciated the effort that they put in.
16:44It's a heartwarming story.
16:45Beyond heartwarming.
16:46I find it almost heart burning.
16:48Actually, that's the pickled egg.
16:50Never mind.
17:07Next, I went and I got all pumped up for the great flin-flon, forget-the-fire inflatable race.
17:15I met the president of the local SPCA who managed to successfully cross fundraising with fundraising,
17:23Nicole Kendrick.
17:28Because it's all for a good cause.
17:30Yeah, I'm the president of our flin-flon and Creighton area SPCA.
17:34We house dogs, cats, recently rabbits.
17:38Nicole told me things were looking bleak last year for the SPCA.
17:41They were facing the real prospect of declaring bankruptcy.
17:45A friend and I actually came up with the complete shenanigans that is this over a couple glasses of wine.
17:51It is a brilliant idea, I've got to say, because you're setting people up for failure in the funniest of
17:57ways.
17:57And they're paying to do it.
17:58And they're paying to do it.
18:00But Nicole said last year it was about raising funds for the SPCA.
18:04This year it was more about getting people out, getting the community together, and just having some fun.
18:09Some people have lost their homes, their everything, and just to come here, forget about it for just a couple
18:16minutes,
18:16and watch some inflatable costumes possibly fall on their face.
18:21I put on a costume, I participated.
18:27Nicole and I raced each other.
18:30Who do you think Johnny was still standing is going to win?
18:33What about our president of the SPCA?
18:36She had a dog costume on and it was a cross between a husky and a hot air balloon.
18:42Get set, go!
18:50And she was winning, but I was chasing that tail.
18:58And I'm not proud of it.
18:59I grabbed her tail to slow her down.
19:03I know it's not cool, but in that alien costume I was getting carried away.
19:10It was a photo finish.
19:11It was a tie.
19:12I lost money because I had bet on myself, which I knew I shouldn't have done,
19:16because I should have known.
19:17She's with the SPCA.
19:19The whole thing was fixed.
19:25And it was great to see some of the local firefighters there.
19:28I had to take the opportunity to ask one of them,
19:31how could there be fire everywhere but not completely wipe out the town?
19:37And he said two words, human intervention.
19:42And that's what it was.
19:55It's tough to look at the near right now, where Holmes once stood its stark.
20:00But the people here are pretty tough too.
20:03Hard rock miners, the likes of Bobby Clark.
20:06Like a pattern in birch bark isn't easy to see till you lift it up to the sun.
20:11The beauty and struggle isn't easy to see.
20:13But in three months, just look what's been done.
20:17And to the firefighters who fought all summer all across this great land,
20:22from Vancouver Island to Conception Bay, Newfoundland,
20:25with no finer effort than here.
20:28So it's from here we wish to show you our love and our thanks,
20:32from Flin Flon, Manitoba.
20:34Thanks for coming out, everybody.
20:35You've been great.
20:37We love you.
20:40We've got all the nuance of the community.
20:43Sensitive because there's the fire and the whole bit.
20:45So it was perfect.
20:47I was amazed by Johnny eating that egg.
20:50Oh, yeah.
20:54It's very emotional for a lot of people, myself included.
20:58I shed a few tears, but it was from laughing.
21:00So that was a good thing.
21:06He's a dirty cheater.
21:09He might have thought I didn't feel him grab my tail, but he grabbed my tail.
21:13We're wishing you lots of luck on baby number four.
21:17Woo-hoo!
21:18Congratulations.
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