Since mid-February, Conuma has been doing special events and tours with local kids.
CEO Brian Sullivan says that it was recognized by the company early on that the youth of Tumbler Ridge were going to need a lot of supports after February 10.
“We recognized that support was going to have to take more forms than perhaps the government agencies and ministries could provide,” says Sullivan. “For example, we knew that they were going to be out of the physical classroom. They were going to be in the trailers. We knew some of the children and some of the families were going to have lasting needs to be supported in ways that the government might not be suited to provide. So we gathered a team of people that could understand each family’s unique needs and each child’s unique needs.
“All the kids that were in the secondary school were affected significantly, and their siblings and their families were affected significantly. And we asked ourselves: “what can Conuma do to help get these kids experiences that will help overwrite or replace the very negative ones and the trauma that happened on February 10 and the days following?”
Sullivan says they quickly realized they were going to have to act almost instantly. “We couldn’t wait for the well-intentioned but slow-moving bureaucracy to spring into action.”
Most of the plans involved getting the kids out into nature. “We wanted to get kids outside, getting fresh air in their lungs and looking at wildlife and appreciating times with their family and friends. Time that they were off the screens and away from computers and out of the classrooms that they were in, away from the place where they were reminded constantly of the trauma that they had endured. We wanted to try to make new memories for them. So Ryan [Lamming] and Lisa [Risvold] and Elizabeth [Ross] and myself started thinking of ways that we could do that. We started by inviting the kids and families that were the most impacted immediately up to our Mesa Pit legacy mine site.”
This was spearheaded by Lamming, he says, and accomplished a couple different purposes. “We started that within two weeks of February 10,” says Sullivan. “We cleared a road up to the pit and brought the families up to Mesa to see the goats and the elk and all the things that you see up on Mesa. Ryan took his CF Moto tracked vehicle up there and started to take four or five people at a time out for a couple hours.”
In that time Lamming has run about forty trips. “While the physical school building is going to be gone, it is a source of trauma for people,” says Sullivan. “But we have the world’s greatest outdoor classroom in and around Tumbler Ridge. We have a UNESCO Global Geopark. We have every manner of wildlife that roams in our surrounds and introducing kids to the importance of connecting with nature was something that we were in a unique position to deliver and deliver quickly. There were other organizations like Safer Schools Together, which came in and really made sure kids were supported, but there were not enough outlets. The Teen Centre is a good example. It’s very well utilized, but doesn’t have enough resources. There just plainly were not enough things for kids to do activity-wise, in a structured way, in a supportive nurturing environment. We took it upon ourselves to open up this avenue.”
As time went on, there were new additions to the tours. “We contacted the University of Northern British Columbia and their astronomy department and we had an astronomer and an astronomical photographer come and they went on a tour, joined by Mr Deeley to try and figure out if there were elements of this program that we have been hatching that could feed back into the curriculum for the secondary school. They are going to come back when the skies get darker and are going to be part of the Carbon Lake Camp curriculum.”
All of this, says Sullivan, has been done without much fanfare, because Conuma didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, they wanted to help the kids.
But in August, he says, the company is going to be running a pair of camps at Carbon Lake. These camps are not just for Tumbler Ridge Secondary students, but for all youth interested in a camp that blends science and cultural, land-based learning.
If this goes well, says Sullivan, it could help establish Tumbler Ridge as a centre of excellence for outdoor education. “Think programs like National Outdoor Leadership School or Outward Bound,” he says. “Getting teenagers out into the wild so that they can develop self-confidence and resilience is something that we identified as one of the pathways to overcome trauma.”
The company has done nothing to publicize the previous trips. Indeed, it has actively worked to not promote the trips beyond the school. But this summer, they will be doing a couple of camps, which will be open to the public. “We were at a meeting with elders of Saulteau First Nations—who we’re in a great partnership with, on caribou conservation, water management, reclamation, and a lot of other efforts. We started to discuss this effort that Ryan was just getting off the ground at that point. And I mentioned it would be really interesting if we could pursue not only the Tumbler Ridge community healing, but combine that with community-to-community reconciliation. We’re always looking for ways to more closely connect the Indigenous Nations and the communities that surround them, and what better way to pursue reconciliation than at the teenage level? Combine traditional knowledge with the sorts of things that we’re seeking to do here because Saulteau, West Moberly, McLeod Lake and Kelly Lake—the indigenous people in the area—have been doing these sorts of things with their young people for thousands of years. They suggested including the Carbon Lake facility that Saulteau has and the dinosaur tracks that they have there and combining our efforts with activities like tenting and fishing and canoeing and hiking and traditional games that you might see played at Pemmican Days. It fit together naturally. And we’re grateful that the people at Saulteau immediately got it and understood what we were about. There’s been such a tremendous outpouring of support from McLeod Lake, West Moberly, Saulteau and Kelly Lake in the wake of uh February 10. This is just the next step.”
The camp will be free to anyone who wants to attend, however, there is a limit on the number of people that can attend. “The idea is we really want the kids to get outside, unplug from their phones and plug into nature. That’s really what the program is about. And we’re going to be here and continue this. This is part of Conuma’s go forward business plan now. It wasn’t before February 10, but it is now.”
Lamming says the camp is open to kids between ten and 18. He says that, while previous trips have focused on exploring the Tumbler Ridge area, Carbon Lake has cultural significance to Saulteau. “And it’s an amazing facility,” he says. “I’ve been there. It’s a very well-kept campground and it has a lot of spiritual and cultural significance for Saulteau. Because this is being put on in conjunction with Saulteau, we jumped at the chance to use the facility. This is something that just doesn’t happen. We’re very grateful and humbled they would offer their sacred land. They also have some significant geology in the area and they have a dinosaur trackway that is unique and not well documented.”
In addition, says Lamming, Conuma will continue taking kids out into the wilderness. “We have reached out to a young local guide, Austin Bradley, who just started up a fishing guide company, Chasing Char. We’ll be working with him, taking youth out to learn fly fishing. There’s obviously risks with that. So these will be much smaller groups. It will be Austin, myself, and no more than two youth at a time. And then we will be teaching them how to fly fish. And hopefully get some zingers on the line there.”
This seems an odd thing for a coal mining company to be doing, but, says Sullivan, this is now a core part of Conuma’s business moving forward. “It certainly wasn’t core before February 10. But what’s core has changed. The way we run our business has changed. The way we think about our relationship with our people has changed. I knew that Conuma was interwoven with Tumbler Ridge before, and over the last ten years I had developed a basic understanding of that relationship, but that understanding has changed. I think people’s relationship with the community was changed.
“In order for Conuma to be healthy, Tumbler Ridge must be healthy. And we’ve seen the speed at which bureaucracy—and I don’t use that term as a pejorative or an insult, it just is—moves, and it wasn’t a speed that matched the very urgent need that was created on February 10. There was a gap developing, and that gap was unhealthy for the community, it was unhealthy for the kids. And if kids are unhappy and parents are worried about their kids, then they’re not going to be able to focus on their jobs in a way that’s safe, and Tumbler Ridge would become a weaker place and a lesser place to live than it was before February 10.
“We don’t want that. We want to have February 10 always be in our memory, but to move forward in a way that makes Tumbler Ridge stronger in the future and honors and remembers the people that were lost. and makes their memory something that leads to a positive path forward for kids in Tumbler Ridge. So that’s really what this was about was just recognizing the community needed some healthy assistance, and as a private enterprise we’re not bounded by timelines or approvals or bureaucracy. We just did it and we didn’t ask anybody’s permission because we didn’t need to. We just asked the families, is this something that would interest you? And they started to say yes very quickly. So our only audience was the families and the people affected. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and watching all of the kids and all of adults appreciate what’s around them has been very gratifying.”Conuma plans summer camps for local kids
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
