Every once in a while something beautiful emerges from tragedy. Last July aerial artist Sasha Galatzki was wrapping up production on Wild Aerial, a collaboration with filmmaker Trixie Pacis showcasing her artistry in wild glaciated settings.
The excitement of completing her first film project was short-lived. On July 22, 2024, the first flames of the Jasper wildfire were reported. Like hundreds of Jasper residents, this devastating wildfire would be a life changer for Galitzki.
She and her mountain guide partner Marcus Waring had bounced around mountain towns for a number of years and only recently settled in Jasper. They had found a place they imagined living for the long term and raising a family.
Instead their house was razed to the ground. The couple lost everything.
Galitizki remembers the collective shock among Jasper residents. Then a feeling of being overwhelmed with the details of filing an insurance claim, figuring out where to live while they rebuilt their lives, and thinking of the irreplaceable photos and mementos lost forever to the flames.
“It was like drowning,” she told TheRockies.Life in an interview from their temporary home in Revelstoke. “I felt like I needed a life raft or something to keep me above water. I kept coming back to this idea of like how can I find something good out of something bad? How can I find some positive way forward out of this really terrible experience?”
Galitzki didn’t lose her creativity and drive to make art and it would be her way forward.
“It felt very obvious. I know how to make a film now and I have a really great partnership with Trixie and a really good level of trust and a strong working relationship. Bringing aerials, movement and film together felt like the right way that I could tell my story with impact,” Galitzki said.
The result is Embers, a deeply personal documentary debuting at the 2025 Banff Mountain Film Festival.
The film captures the emotional trauma of the wildfire and Galitzki’s search to find deeper meaning in this catastrophic event. Returning to her aerial artform and the glaciated settings she loves was important catharsis and recovery.
However, it was equally important to lean into the realities of global warming and how drier winters, hotter summers and years of controlling forest fires have created a perfect storm of conditions that make possible fires as devastating as the one that hit Jasper last summer.
The film is a balance of simple visual beauty in the form of Galitzki’s aerial art and poignant interviews with Alison Criscitiello, a leading glaciologist, forest fire scientist Mike Flannigan and Amy Cardinal Christianson, a Metis expert in Indigenous fire stewardship practices.
These diverse voices help elevate the film beyond simply a documentation of tragedy. Galitzki said it’s her way of “moving the needle” on global warming and how we need to adapt, even if it’s in a very small way.
Embers is unflinching. It invites viewers inside the hurt and suffering experienced by Galitzki and her partner, which took courage for Galitzki who considers herself “introverted and shy.”
“It was helpful for me to be able to be vulnerable in a way that felt safe and that was primarily through my art. Moving in the air is a way that I feel I can express emotion and it feels very comfortable,” she said.
Ultimately, Embers is a message of hope. More than a year after the fire, personal recovery is still a work in progress. The mundane details of insurance claims are tedious and time consuming. The couple is still waiting to break ground on a new home in Jasper and return to the community they chose. Despite the busyness, Galitzki’s unique art form flourishes.
“Marcus and I joke that we’ve entered our minimalist era. We don’t have a lot of things. I find myself saving cards and the things that I have received that have sentimental value since the fire,” she said. “I’m holding on to those a little bit more tightly than I might have before because they are all I have that connects me to the people and experiences I love. That’s been a good grounding for us. It’s what really matters in life.”
