August 30 2019

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Nickel Belt News Volume Volume 58 59 Number • Issue 3511

Friday, March30, 16,2019 2018 Friday, August

Thompson, Manitoba Thompson, Manitoba

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Building boom beginning in Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation Community building new school, health centre and water treatment plant

BY KYLE DARBYSON

KYLE@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN) was the site of a trio of sod turningceremonies Aug. 21 to commemorate the roughly $82 million worth of new infrastructure that is being built in the community over the next couple years. These ongoing construction projects include a new health centre, a Grade 7-12 school and a water treatment plant. NCN invited several guests to take part in this celebration, including Thompson Mayor Colleen Smook, Thompson Progressive Conservative candidate Kelly Bindle, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee and several representatives from Indigenous Services Canada, who provided the funding for all three projects. NCN Chief Marcel Moody told the Nickel Belt News Aug. 22 that construction started on the new water treatment plant about a month ago. Their existing facility is over capacity and too expensive to keep running. “Over the last couple years we spent about $4 million of our own money maintaining this facility,” he said. “We just can’t af-

Book a way to preserve and pass on memories of growing up in Churchill

Nickel Belt News photo courtesy of Willie Moore Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation council members and other invited guests took part in a sod-turning ceremony at the future site of the community’s new health centre Aug. 21. ford to maintain it and obviously when it’s not running properly there’s health issues, there’s safety issues ... so it affects the whole community.” Moody said they are hoping to complete this new water treatment plant by August 2020. NCN is building its new Grade 7-12 school for largely the same reason, since

their current high school, Nisichawayasihk Neyo Ohtinwak Collegiate, is falling apart and wasn’t designed for long-term use in the first place. “We want to create an environment for kids to learn and be excited about to going to school and it’s just not there,” said Moody. “It’s not adequate, it’s not suitable, it’s not functional for a high

school. We’re having a lot of issues with it. We have to do a lot of work in terms of the foundation because it’s sunk in one part.” Moody anticipates that construction of this new high school will take around two years to complete and will nicely complement the community’s existing Otetiskiwin Kiskinwamahtowekamik elementary school.

THE NDP WANT YOU TO PAY $1.74 FOR A LITRE OF GAS

The NCN chief also said they’ve finalized the design for the new health centre, but are delaying construction on that project until next year. All three of these new facilities will be built within NCN’s new subdivision, which comprises a couple of square kilometres of undeveloped land on the north side of the community.

1.74

Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles has written a book about her experiences growing up, mostly in Churchill. BY IAN GRAHAM

to write things that you have to figure out. It’s pretty clear Though she’s now written when I get through.” a book about her experienDeMeulles said she wrote ces growing up in Churchill, her book, titled Whispers in Addictions Foundation of the Wind: Stories from the Manitoba northern director North - Life in Churchill for Gisele deMeulles said writ- a couple of reasons. ing wasn’t something she “I just sort of thought, always thought she would you know what, this hisdo. tory, this stuff that’s in my “In my youth I never head, it’s going to be gone felt good at writing,” she if I don’t write it down,” she said. “But when I moved said. “My kids are not goto Thompson to get into ing to get it if I don’t do it the school of social work, and it’s something I’ve alat that point I had to write ways wanted my mom to for university and realized, do. My mom’s an elder and ‘Holy, I’m not bad at this, she’s an artist, she’s got so right?’ I certainly developed many wonderful stories bea lot of skill in university cause she always tells her and came out of there with stories at Parks Canada in a very strong skill in my Churchill and I’ve always writing and confidence in hounded her, ‘Please, just my writing. I write very put it on tape, I will write it clearkellybindle4mla.com and that’s it. It’s there. for you because your story Some people say it’s kind of is going to be lost,’ and she’s blunt or direct. I don’t tend never done it and I thought, EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

‘Oh, I’m just as bad, right?’ I have all these stories and I need to capture them for my grandchildren really because they will be lost if I don’t.” She also has a reputation as a storyteller herself. “I had such a varied history and I would tell people stories and they would go, ‘That’s not true, is it?’ I’d go, ‘Yeah it’s true.’ They’d go, ‘You didn’t do all that, did you? You’ve got to be really old.’ I was like, ‘No, actually I did all that before I was 27,’ and they went ‘What?’” Looking back, some of those experiences are things she might not do again. “I did some pretty bizarre stuff like fuel hauls into the high Arctic at -35,” said deMeulles. “It didn’t dawn on me until after. That was a very dangerous thing to do. Being on a plane full of fuel

was not a very safe thing to do but I jumped at it. I thought that was exciting until the plane landed and they started throwing the fuel off and I realized, ‘Holy cats, I was probably sitting on a bomb.’” Another thing that spurred her on was the hard times facing Churchill since the Hudson Bay Railway suspended operations north of Gillam last spring. “It used to be a really thriving large community and it’s just dwindled down to such a small population now,” deMeulles says. Though she’s not there any longer, her parents and her sister and other family members still are. “My cousin owns the hardware store there,” she says. Because of that, deMeulles finds it hard to

THOMPSON

Nickel Belt News photo by Ian Graham

For all the harsh weather swallow when people say that Churchill residents and the dangers of polar should just find somewhere bears, deMeulles said if it easier to live. had been viable she would “To say, ‘Those people have moved back to Churchchoose to live there. They ill in a heartbeat. should just leave,’ is quite “I miss the shoreline, I simplistic. It’s quite disre- miss the rock, I miss the spectful. If we were in the polar bears even though same boat in another area they’re very dangerous and I think we would scream I really miss the Hudson about that so why don’t they Bay,” she says. “When I go have the option to do that? back home, standing on the I think right now they’re Hudson Bay looking out on feeling like they’re pawns the bay, it just gives you an in a political game and that’s incredible sense. You feel so really sad for them because I small and you feel great.” think the people of ChurchNow that she’s got ill really want to thrive. one book under her belt, They’ve built their worlds deMeulles says she may try there. How would we feel to produce another. if someone came to you and “I have another book in said, ‘I’m sorry, you have to me,” she says. “It’s a darker leave your home community story, more about personand we’re going to displace al growth and struggles. you somewhere else and all Maybe in the next five years Authorized by the Official Agent for Kelly Bindle your loved ones and your it’s something I’ll focus on history is gone?’” doing.”

“I will fight to make life more affordable and against this NDP super carbon tax. On Sep 10 vote for a candidate that will leave more money in your pocket”

Kelly Bindle

“We’re just excited that these plans have finally come to fruition and hopefully it’ll promote healthier communities and a better environment for our students to go back to school,” said Moody. “We also want quality drinking water for our people. Right now we don’t have that. People are suspicious of the quality of water.”


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