{"id":74080,"date":"2026-02-10T10:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/?p=74080"},"modified":"2026-02-11T12:59:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:59:45","slug":"wildfire-water-and-finding-your-why-on-the-land-in-nlakapamux-territory-with-patrick-michell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/story\/74080\/wildfire-water-and-finding-your-why-on-the-land-in-nlakapamux-territory-with-patrick-michell\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire, water and finding your \u201cwhy\u201d\u2014on the land in Nlaka’pamux territory with Patrick Michell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The dark blue waters of the Thompson River flow into the Fraser below the railroad tracks, not far from where the 2021 Lytton blaze first ignited. Tl’kemtsin, meaning \u201cwhere the rivers meet\u201d, is the original name of Lytton in the language of the Nlaka’pamux people, who have lived on these lands since time immemorial.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

A home lost, and the fierce will to rebuild<\/h3>\n\n

Patrick Michell and Tina Grenier want a house that can withstand flames. After losing their home and hometown in the devastating Lytton fire of June 30, 2021, the husband and wife are doing everything in their power to make sure they never have to live through that again.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

“I’m sixty years of age. I’ve lived in this very town all my life. Everywhere I go, the environment is changing,\u201d warns Patrick. \u201cThe very conditions that granted our ancestors life are changing dramatically, and it\u2019s not for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Knowing that wildfires will only become more frequent and more intense<\/a> due to climate change, he and Tina submitted a proposal to rebuild their home using fire-resistant and climate-resilient materials. Residential rebuilds in Tina\u2019s home community of Tl’kemtsin (Lytton First Nation, or LFN) received federal funding<\/a> from the Indigenous Services Canada Emergency Management Assistance Program, but last month, a curveball was thrown their way again when the LFN council did not approve their proposal.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s difficult to do something new or different\u2014and that\u2019s fully understandable, Patrick tells me over Zoom, a couple of weeks after the decision and a few months after I visited him on Nlaka’pamux land this past August. Their replacement home would have been the first house in the region using uncommon (but tested) materials that can withstand external temperature and flames for longer than conventional materials.<\/p>\n\n

LFN did approve a 2,400-square-foot rebuild footprint, which is much smaller than the family\u2019s original six-bedroom home, which housed four generations under one roof. This means, heartwrenchingly, there is no room for the couple\u2019s daughter, Serena, her husband, and their two young boys. <\/p>\n\n

So, Patrick and Tina are now advancing the smaller design with the best-known options in a world of imperfect choices. Their old home was fully paid off but uninsured, so rebuilding on their own would be incredibly expensive. The couple is very grateful for the support they are getting from Canada and LFN, and they hope to move out of their temporary house and into the new home next year. Serena\u2019s family will continue to rent an apartment at T’eqt”aqtn’mux (Kanaka Bar Indian Band), about 20 kilometres south.<\/p>\n\n

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Tina (left) and a pregnant Serena Michell-Grenier (right) at the family\u2019s intergenerational home, lost in 2021.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Serena, Fernando, their children Atreus (front-left) and Felix (in the baby seat), and a cousin, in Patrick and Tina\u2019s temporary home. \u201cMy Indigenous ancestors keep me here. When I leave my traditional territory, I don’t feel as comfortable,\u201d Serena told a<\/em> journalist from France\u2019s Le Monde<\/em><\/a> newspaper earlier this year. \u201cI grew up here. My life, my family are here.\u201d<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

The news has been difficult to process.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cClimate change and its impacts are mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and please don’t forget financial,\u201d Patrick warns. \u201cThe longer you’re displaced, the worse it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Carrying the weight of too many disasters<\/h3>\n\n

Regions like  B.C\u2019s Fraser Canyon have been through the ringer. Just coming out of Covid-19 in 2020, disasters cascaded in rapid succession in 2021: the Lytton fire in June; the atmospheric river and floods in the fall; and the plunging temperatures of December\u2019s winter freeze-up<\/a>. Since then, it\u2019s been four consecutive years of wildfires, evacuation alerts, and evacuation orders. Meanwhile, community members continue to recover and heal<\/a> from the traumatic wounds of residential schools, which echo across generations.<\/p>\n\n

This compounding and consecutive trauma makes it difficult to get out of despair and fight or flight mode, says Patrick. So, in 2022, he retired as Chief of the T’eqt”aqtn’mux to help his family recover. Once they were stabilized, he spent time working with LFN as their Rebuild Director.<\/p>\n\n

A husband, a father, a leader holding many worlds together<\/h3>\n\n

Patrick juggled these hats with intention and perspective. As a husband, Patrick is happy that he and Tina will soon have a home again. The uncertainty (and exhaustion) of this part of their journey is over. And while they\u2019re disappointed in the decision about their house, they\u2019re moving forward. As a father and grandfather, Patrick is turning his attention to finding a nearby forever home for Serena and her family. And in his former role as LFN Rebuild Director, he had his eyes on bringing more climate resilience and self-sufficiency to the region.<\/p>\n\n

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I have to believe. If I don\u2019t keep the faith, if I don\u2019t stand up today, who’s going to look after my children and grandchildren tomorrow?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Patrick Michell<\/p>\n\n

\u201cHope flows from action\u201d: A mantra for the Anthropocene<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n
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Patrick Michell stands in front of Nickeyeah Creek, which he has known all his life. It flows just a few kilometres south of the town of Lytton, from west of the Fraser River.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Patrick is a force of nature behind many climate resilience stories<\/a>. While Chief of the Kanaka Bar Indian Band, he oversaw teams to implement projects that strengthened community self-determination, such as gravity-fed water storage systems, small-scale solar, controlled environment agriculture, and much more.<\/p>\n\n

He tries to be an \u201ceternal flame of optimism\u201d<\/a>, and you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a more determined person. He presents when asked to do so\u2014wherever he\u2019s asked to do so\u2014 and pictures of his children and grandchildren are peppered across his many public talks<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Ever-cheeky, he uses the slide below to introduce attendees to what he calls \u201ca logic flow and waterfall of strategic investments.\u201d In other words, fund the physiological foundations of life first, and then attend to other needs and systems. (And according to Patrick\u2019s grandkids, wifi is fundamental).<\/p>\n\n

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The slide illustrates Patrick\u2019s tongue-in-cheek rendering of <\/em>Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs<\/em><\/a>. It\u2019s a moment in his presentations to make an ecological and decolonial point, since Maslow\u2019s model was <\/em>informed by Indigenous Blackfoot knowledge<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

There\u2019s a larger-than-life quality to Patrick\u2019s resolve. It\u2019s contagious\u2014something he\u2019s been told again and again. And while he\u2019s modest about it, I’ve learned how much intention he brings to his conversations, how aware he is of the apathy that set in because of past trauma, climate grief, compounding catastrophes, and a rigged economic system.<\/p>\n\n

For Patrick, the only cure is action, as he wrote in a piece for the Canadian Climate Institute.<\/a><\/p>\n\n

\u201cHope flows from action. Quit your yakkin\u2019 and start doing!\u201d he says, half-jokingly.<\/p>\n\n

For that, you\u2019ll need to connect to the reason you wake up and get out of bed each day. Patrick\u2019s reason is obvious. His love for his family is at the root of everything we talked about back in August, when he took me, my partner, Charlie, and our toddler, Mero\u00eb, out on the land onto Nlaka’pamux territory.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhen we have a \u2018why\u2019, we get up and do,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe success that I’ve had is because I’ve had teams around me that believe in the same \u2018why\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

A community rising, one home and one breath at a time<\/h3>\n\n

Since 2021, LFN has successfully moved 42 displaced families from hotels into temporary modular homes. Last year, it began constructing 80 new homes, slated for completion by the end of 2026. And in the next ten years, LFN hopes to build 175 more new homes. <\/p>\n\n

When we spoke to him first (during his time as Rebuild Director) Patrick said that the Nation is also taking steps to reduce the risks to current houses from flames, embers, and radiant heat, through measures like new metal roofing, installing proper soffits and fascia board, repairs to venting, replacing siding with non-flammable materials, and (most importantly) removing the fuel that feeds the flames. This means clearing brush, grass, and scrub from around dwellings and critical infrastructure\u00a0<\/p>\n\n


LFN also built a temporary caf\u00e9, general store, large gathering space, and a hardware store to serve the wider area of Lytton. A new food processing centre, the Y\u2019Kem Food Hub<\/a>, is currently under construction. This will be a place where people can bring their meats, fruits, and vegetables for processing and storing through freezing, canning, drying, salting, smoking, jamming, and juicing. Surplus food not needed by the family can be sold to generate income.<\/p>\n\n

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As we gather, our elders share stories of the past, of the vibrant life that once thrived here, of our traditions and of our deep connection to the land \u2026 They remind us that fire, though destructive, can also clear the way for new growth.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

 – Rainbow Djo<\/em>, LFN Communications Manager<\/em> (see video below)<\/p>\n\n

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