How Yukon’s tiny Jewish community is surviving the worst wildfires in a generation

Rick Karp and his fellow Jewish Yukoners have spent the past week carefully monitoring the ongoing wildfires that are raging through their territory. There have been more than 240 forest fires in the Yukon this year, including 182 burning right now—the most in a generation, and five times more than last year—all because of lighting strikes and abnormally hot weather.

There were evacuation notices and even advisories from the government last week asking people not to travel in or to the Yukon. Major highways have been closed, which also means trucks can't deliver food on their usual schedules. It's a significant danger for those choosing to live in the North.

In that time, Karp, the longtime head of the Yukon's Jewish Cultural Society, has been working on community projects for the territory's 38 Jews. In addition to building a new website, one of his biggest challenges is getting Whitehorse to host the city's first-ever Jewish Heritage Month. On today's episode of The CJN Daily, Karp joins to share his plans to make that happen—and what the future of the Yukon's small Jewish community looks like.

What we talked about:

• Visit the Jewish Cultural Society of Yukon at jcsy.org
• Watch the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games
• Learn more about Rick Karp at his website
• Read "The pioneering Jews who went north to find riches in the Klondike" at thecjn.ca

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Production assistance by Gabrielle Nadler and YuZhu Mou. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.