Resilient Infrastructure: Community-Centred Spatial Strategies for Disaster Mitigation in Yellowknife

Abstract

In 2023, wildfires in Canada’s Northwest Territories forced 68 percent of the population to evacuate. Yellowknife, the capital, moved approximately 20,000 people in three days. The Prime Minister attributed the success of this evacuation to “community members and individuals” rather than “effective infrastructure”. Community cohesion and agency are increasingly highlighted as central to disaster resilience in both disaster policy and scholarship. If community is central to disaster resilience, what role should infrastructure play? This thesis analyzes the Yellowknife evacuations through both a critical geographical and adaptive resilience lens, analyzing the physical forms of disaster response and spatializing the failures cited in after-action reports and news stories to reframe infrastructure as a collaborative social practice. Through this practice, it reimagines disaster mitigation infrastructure as spaces that prioritize human dignity, adaptability, and collaboration, and hopes to challenge policymakers and architects to move beyond technical fixes and embrace resilience as a collective endeavor.