Alberta woman organizes rescue mission for horses from Yellowknife

The line of southbound vehicles waiting to fuel up at Fort Providence, N.W.T., on Thursday, less than a day after the city of Yellowknife was ordered to evacuate, was "kilometres long," Sienna Kellar recalled.

She was going the other way, though, as part ofa small convoy oftrucks and horse trailers drivingnorth, straight to the evacuating city. There weresome animals to rescue.

Kellar, from Innisfail, Alta., is a professional horse trainer who grew up in Yellowknife. Shelearned to ride at North Country Stables in Yellowknife and has kept in touch with the owners.

On Wednesday morningshe got a message from themdescribingthe wildfire approaching the city, and their stables. The fire was about 16 kilometres from their barn.

"I grew up there, I started riding there when I wassevenyears old and I mean, those horses I learned to ride on are still the horses that are there," she said.

"You don't want those horses to die."

She knew that North Country Stables didn't have the trailers to move all the animals: 22 horses, some goats, mini ponies and mini donkeys. Kellar decided she had to act.

"You just know that if you don't go and make the call, that they're going to have to be released into the wild to fend for themselves, you know. And I couldn't do that," she said.

Kellar started phoning friends and family and anybody else who might have a horse trailer and the inclination to drive 18 hours towardan active wildfire zone. It didn't take long, and by Wednesday evening they were on the road eight people in four trucks, each vehicle hauling an empty horse trailer.

They took turns driving. Several times they were slowed by police orblockades set up to preventpeople from driving towardthe evacuation zone. Once they explained their mission, though, they were allowed through.

"When we hit Enterprise [N.W.T.], Ithink that's when it really hit all of us how dangerous what we were doing was, because Enterprise was completely burned down,"Kellarsaid.

"Like, everywhere you looked, every single house, building, shop, was burned to the ground."

By Thursday evening, they reachedNorth Country Stables. They weren't sure how easy it would be to load the horses up; Kellar said many of them hadnever been in a trailer.

Then there was Norman a 28-year-old horse who wasn't able to move very well anymore. Kellar saidthere was talk of maybe euthanizing him because they didn't think he'd endure the journey south.

But it all went "way better than expected," she said, and about 90 minuteslater they were back on the road, this time with a full load of animals. Even Norman.

"So many people were cryingthat Norman made it out of Yellowknife," Kellar said.

On Friday, they reached Grande Prairie and what would become temporary home for most of the animals.

Mark Benoitand his partner have a farm there with plenty ofroom to roam.

Benoitis originally from Hay River, N.W.T., and his family lost their farm there, at Paradise Gardens, inlast year's floods.He remembers how people stepped up to help his family out at that time,so he was happy to offer up his space when Kellarcalled.

"Pay our dues back, right?" Benoit said.

While Kellar and the others were on the road, Benoit got busy building some morepens for his incoming guests. Local businesses helped him out by offeringsupplies at a discount.

"I had my mother and my brother and my two kids helping, and the wife, and we just buckled down and got it done," he said.

Most of the rescued horses are now at Benoit's farm, along with six goats, a couple of mini horses and a couple of mini donkeys.

"They're doing beautiful, enjoying the sunshine, rolling in the dirt, eating lots of food.They got lots of green grass here," he said on Saturday.

"It was a hectic first day but ... everybody's settled and everybody's enjoying themselves."

Kellar ended up getting home at about 9 p.m. on Friday, a little more than 48 hours after her convoyleft. They had barely stopped along the way. It felt "surreal," she said, thinking of howthey'd just been in Yellowknife, briefly, a day before.

They were also exhausted.

"We had a little clink of whiskey and then we all went to bed," she laughed.