‘It’s time to do something’: Climate change endangering remote First Nations communities

Warmer winter temperatures generally are greeted with universal glee across Canada – except among First Nations living in remote, isolated reserves where the frigid cold is essential for survival.

Manitoban reserves, like Island Lake, 600 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, have been threatened by impassable winter road conditions as day temperatures rose above freezing in early February.

While heavy late February snow provided a welcome respite, with Manitoba Transport and Infrastructure crews patching up degraded stretches of roadway, forecasts of warmer weather through March worries the four First Nations communities that make up the Island Lake Tribal Council, or Anisininew Okimawin.

The impact of soggy roads last month was near catastrophic. The movement of supplies of essential items like critical medical stock, fuel, building materials and transport was threatened – and community leaders petitioned the federal and provincial governments for urgent help. All across northern Canada, the unpredictability of the climate has affected winter road conditions to varying degrees.

“I am very frustrated this year,” said Dwayne Chornoby, 51, a businessman who lives in Garden Hill. He had to plough an alternate stretch of road himself when a significant snow amount fell in late February. His unofficial road is narrower, allows one vehicle at a time to pass some spots, cannot bear heavy loads like the main winter road . . . but it is something, and it allows some movement of goods much cheaper than by air.

Even the snowbanks have not been as high this year, for a place accustomed to 200 centimetres of snow.

“Driving on the winter road feels like driving on a sponge,” said Grand Chief Garrison Settee in February from Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba. Winter roads deteriorated rapidly at temperatures of 2 C in early February, warmer than daily averages of -13.1 C to -25.3 C.

The chiefs say their region, with a population of about 15,000 will be further isolated and faces long-term economic ruin if this lifeline is not maintained.

“In Wasagamack, food prices, already two to three times higher than in Winnipeg, will rise even more,” said Chief Walter Harper.

Chief Samuel Knott of Red Sucker Lake expressed grave concerns about the possibility of school closure and nursing stations, and the impact of isolation on his people’s health and mental well-being. For their part, community members who have the means have had to make frantic trips to Winnipeg to stock up on supplies while the road is open.

So far, neither the province nor federal government has responded to cries for well-maintained roads that guarantee all-season transportation, or powers to generate taxes and use the revenue for road building.

Since November, the community of four First Nations here have held three emergency meetings. The first was on the rise of community suicides; the second concerned the exorbitant airfare and grocery prices as road conditions worsened; and the latest meeting late February addressed the shortage of doctors and nurses and the lack of roads to bring in fresh supplies.

Instead of providing proper roads, governments choose to fly the sick and all pregnant women to Winnipeg hospitals to give birth and get treated, complained Nellieane Cromarty, 77.

“The planes are rotten, we are put up in hotels with bedbugs and cockroaches that get in our things and get carried back home.”

“The planes are rotten, we are put up in hotels with bedbugs and cockroaches that get in our things and get carried back home,” said Tanya McDougall, her daughter. The Medical Transportation Reporting Schedule (MTRS), a service used by the First Nations Inuit Health Department of Indigenous Services Canada, estimates that 22,578 trips were made in 2017-2018 at a cost of $35,275,190.

The four First Nations in the region are largely difficult to access by road vehicles and mainly rely on air transport outside the winter season. But the limited road access is critical – especially for those who can’t absorb the rising cost of air transportation, the go-to option.

The reserves face serious, chronic overcrowding conditions, making housing infrastructure a core priority. Good winter road makes it possible to haul bulk supplies of building and infrastructure materials, food, medical supplies, drugs and equipment needed for dialysis, respirators, groceries, freight and machinery that could last the year. Roads reduce travel costs and consequently improve people’s health and well-being.

Knowing this is one thing, fixing the problem goes far beyond the understanding of most Canadians in the south.

In the remote communities of the Canadian North – the isolated areas in the tundra arctic and taiga parts of boreal Canada – winter roads are non-permanent road networks.

They are constructed across land and over frozen bodies of water from hard-packed snow and thickened ice. Pumped water provides additional road depth and Acrow panel movable bridges support the roads. Surface snow is constantly plowed to reduce an insulator effect that could accelerate road melting. Lack of snow, therefore, becomes a problem.

For the 0.3 per cent of the Canadian population living in remote communities spread across 40 per cent of our northern land mass, the 8,000 km of winter roads provide immediate access during the winter. Speed limits are 35 km/h since waves formed under the ice by speeding vehicles can expand and crack the ice.

Anisininew Okimawin Grand Chief Scott Harper said warm weather accelerates the declining road conditions. Alex McDougall, a former chief of Wasagamack, said warm weather results in inadequate snow to build and maintain the roads. “During the last season,” he says, “we appealed to the province to provide additional resources to repair the affected section of the road using materials like a levelling mud cap, sand and rock deposits on the natural contours of the muskeg terrain to cushion the driving conditions.”

Satellite monitoring systems provide alerts for unsafe conditions even before they become visible. They can identify cracks and bubbles in weakened ice and determine ice quality and thickness. The intensity and strength of the waves in the unfrozen water on the satellite images provide useful data for road maintenance, safety reports and newer technology like mobile phone apps.

“The biggest piece in this conversation is global warming and it is time to do something,” said McDougall.

Chief Raymond Flett of St. Theresa Point said the road cannot bear up to half of the recommended 17 tonnes of vehicular weight in its weakened state. “We need an all-season road network from St. Theresa Point to Berens River,” he said. This 252-km road would stay open all year, connecting the communities. But McDougall estimates this would take at least five years to build and requires substantial funding and investment.

The Anisininew leaders have urged the federal and provincial governments to support the region by injecting financial and emergency resources, and directly empowering them to rebuild and maintain their winter road infrastructure that is vital to the Anisininewuk’s health.