Above Summerland

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There are landscapes we carry inside us long after we leave them, places we assume will always be there waiting for us. The Okanagan Valley is one of those places for me. Last summer, I brought my daughters back there. Then the highway closed, the smoke descended, and a familiar landscape suddenly became something else.…

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In 2021, Lytton, British Columbia, reached 49.6°C — hotter than Las Vegas — and then burned almost entirely to the ground. Five years later, smoke from Canada’s increasingly ferocious wildfire seasons was drifting south across the border, fouling American cities and threatening the World Cup. The response from Washington? Blame Canada — and threaten to…