Greatest Hits: After escaping the Jasper forest fires, this tourist couple found safety in the Jewish community

North Star is on vacation this week, so we're rerunning some of our favourite episodes. This one originally aired August 7, 2024.

Sharon Chodirker and Chaim Bell consider themselves lucky: they were among the tens of thousands of tourists and residents in Jasper who were evacuated from the forest fires that devoured a third of the buildings in the iconic Rocky Mountain resort town on July 24, 2024. The Toronto couple, who were on a hiking trip, managed to escape Jasper while smoke and ash rained down on their rental car. When they reached a safe spot across the border in British Columbia, they slept in their vehicle and dined on kosher snacks they'd stored in their portable cooler.

Two days after their frightening journey, flames up to 100 metres high swept right through where their hotel stood, destroying several buildings. Now they're sharing their survival story from the safety of their Toronto home, while the town of Jasper remains off-limits except for emergency crews—and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who visited on Aug. 5, 2024.

On this episode of The CJN Daily, we hear from the Toronto couple personally, as well as Rabbi Dovid Pinson of Canmore, who runs the new Chabad community centre outside Banff and hosted the evacuees. We'll also hear from Heidi Coleman, the head of the Jewish community in Kamloops, B.C., who felt like she was starring in the musical Come From Away when she helped a busload of stranded Jasperites in her city.

What we talked about

• When Rabbi Dovid Pinson ran the annual Hanukkah car menorah parade in Edmonton during COVID in 2021, in The CJN


• Learn more about Chabad in the Rockies


• Hear how Heidi Coleman came from Montreal to Kamloops and became their Jewish leader, on the podcast Yehupetzville


Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Original Music: Dov Beck-Levine
• Music: Bret Higgins

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