Place on Fire: A Curriculum of Resiliency

Abstract

Almost half of all Canadians can expect to experience a major disaster in their lifetime and of those, nearly a quarter require emotional and psychological recovery time beyond one year. Utilizing Therese Greenwood’s What You Take With You, a recount of the 2016 Horse River Wildfire, to reinforce the concept of story as curriculum, I consider how disaster experiences sever connection to identity, sense of security, and relationship to land. Dwayne Donold suggests that curriculum is the stories we tell about the world and our place in it, and as such, I reflect on stories of exodus, the in-between, and return home during the wildfire in order to explore what these stories have to offer us as curriculum of resiliency and recovery to progress the conversation on learning and recovery in relation to place.