As day breaks on the Ganges, a dozen Hindu devotees slowly dip in the river's holy water and quietly chant. This is Varanasi, the ancient spiritual centre in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, considered the holiest of cities.
A couple in their 70s left homeless after their trailer home burned to the ground in last summer's Nova Scotia wildfires; an artist in Charlevoix, Que., whose studio was destroyed in floods after a powerful rainstorm; a general store in Tatamagouche, N.S., struggling to pay the bills after post-tropical storm Fiona.