North Bound

Fort Severn Etc. 

I can now say that I have been to all the most northerly communities in Ontario. On Sunday we left for Fort Severn and began our mission: creating a community safety plan against forest fires for every reserve north of Moosenee. This involved identifying water sources and measuring how much hose was required to protect the values on the perimeter of the community. In five days we traveled down the Hudson Bay coast to five reserves:

Fort Severn
Peawanuck
Attawapiskat
Kashechewan
Fort Albany

Although I was familiar with reserves, this trip has opened my eyes to a whole new type of life and served as a huge reality check. Huddeled in the midst of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, these river-side communities live a simple life full of tradition, but it is punctuated by extreme isolation, poverty, teenage pregnancy and the abuse of drugs and alcohol. But it is not the same in every reserve: some are well taken care of, with mowed lawns, clean driveways and general organization, but some are a mess of bare gravel, excess garbage and crime. Some stats of my trip:

26 - Belugas Whales
2 - dead Caribou being gutted
4 - dry reserves (empty bottles still litter the ground all over the place)
1 - times I had cell phone service (in Fort Severn)
1 - times our plane got broken into
0 - Polar Bears I saw (they don't come off the ice till July)
Uncountable - Black Flies, Horse Flies, Teepees and Big Canoes

Flying there - FIVE hours!

The only way to reach these communities is by air - the highway only goes as north as Cochrane and the train only reaches Moosenee - so we packed all our food and bags into the "Turbo Beaver", a small sea plane. We had to stop twice for fuel! Once we hit James Bay we saw the ice had started to recede and we even saw a pack of Beluga whales after we got to Hudson Bay. Flying over the landscape is extremely lonely: hardly any trees, tons of bog and absolutely no civilization for hours. What I didn't expect was the dirt runways that each reserve has - no pavement in sight!

Fort Severn

My first impression was of HOLY HORSE FLIES. They were everywhere and they were absolutely huge. Then I saw the small, rundown buildings surrounded by disorderly stacks of empty fuel barrels, garbage and rusting machinery. All of the roads were gravel and hardly any cars drove on them, but 4x4s roared around like crazy. Our Inn's windows had metal bars on the windows, because apparently the locals like to throw rocks at the windows of visitors. The police stayed at the inn as well because their building was set on fire. Because they had no jail cells they used the police trucks!!! After supper we went whale watching, and didn't see any, but two caribou were shot and we saw them get gutted. The guy's knife was totally dull, so he asked to use mine - it is now christened I guess lol. On the way home we saw a crazy bright double-rainbow. So cool!
The actual measurement process started in the morning and was easy enough, but very tedious.

Peawanuck
The difference here was like night and day. It was the only reserve that allows alcohol, but it was the nicest. The lawns had grass, which was mowed, the houses were built in neat subdivisions, there was no garbage and the neat shoreline was lined with boats in much better condition than those in Fort Severn. Our bunk house was also much nicer and even had a BBQ, so we made a delicious steak dinner.

Attawapiskat 
This was another kind of dirty reserve. It was by far the largest - even had a PizzaHut outlet! - but piles of garbage and broken down cars littered almost every yard. Interestingly though, a fire was burning outside of the town while we were there, so we went to go see it. Sweet! This evening our crew leader cooked (I usually do) and he made a deadly spicy chili. Stan got quite the sweaty brow!
To the right is the Treatment Centre for Drug and Alcohol abuse, located in the boonies outside of Attawapiskat. Love the building!


Kashechewan

Glen warned us that this would be the worst off reserve and lo and behold it was. Fires aren't really a problem here, but floods are and apparently they never clean up after them. Graffiti was definitely the worst here and weirdly enough, red Xs were painted on most of the houses. I saw a group of boys play baseball in an open area covered in gravel and garbage. I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. We didn't want to stay here overnight, so we finished our job quickly and flew back over the river to Fort Albany, the last reserve we had to create a plan for.

Fort Albany

Even from the air you could tell that this reserve had it together. On an evening walk I was able to confirm this. The houses were larger, lawns were mowed again, new log cabins were being built and it didn't have the same kind of poverty aura the others had. Although it was the nicest reserve, it was not the safest. I say this because at 3am that night our plane got broken into!! Before they set off the Emergency Locator Transmitter they blew up all the life jackets, cut a couple wires, stole a fire extinguisher and spread tuna all over the plane!! Needless to say, our pilot was super stressed. Luckily this only delayed our departure by a few hours! The flight home was much shorter than the earlier one, and we only stopped once for fuel, in Moosonee. Such a good trip!