When I set out for Waterton National Park in Alberta, Canada, I imagined fall forests resplendent in golds, accented by oranges and reds. The smell of leaves composting into the earth and the peace of the earth quieting into winter. What I found was a blackened landscape, still deeply scarred by the 2017 Kenow Fire eight years ago.
When the foliage is gone, the structure lies bare. Undulations ripple along the mountainsides; seeps and drainages stand out.
The rhythms of the forest are speaking in structure, not color. This gift in this landscape of open vistas is long sightlines – a dream for wildlife spotting.
The Kenow Fire ignited with a lightning strike and burned slowly until September 11, 2017, when it blew up in critically dry conditions, surging from 30,000 to 104,000 acres overnight, overtaking Waterton National Park. 
The Kenow Wildfire was a fire of exceptional severity exceeding every fire since the Park’s records began in 1700. In the end, half of the vegetated land and 80% of the hiking trails in the Park were burnt.
In almost all of this burn area, most or all of the organic matter was seared away by the fire. The topsoil burned away to a depth of three feet.
Dense conifer forests are being replaced by young aspens and shrubs such as Saskatoon berry, thimbleberry, and huckleberry. It’s a bear’s delight! The conifers will come back, too. They grow relatively slowly.
Fire is necessary, natural, “normal” for these forests. Our human misunderstanding and resulting meddling have given rise to an increase in these large, catastrophic (by human standards) fires. This was a dramatic fire. The recovery is being documented and studied, providing insights into the land’s history and the resilience of nature.
It’s often not what I expected, but it’s always an adventure.
If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.
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