This morning at about 1 AM, I got called to The Hospital. Anthony had just died. Yesterday it was clear that he didn’t have much longer. Now the waiting and the pain are over. Anthony was about 30 years old when he died. His family is native to Kashechewan. (For those of you up south … that’s across The River from Fort Albany.)
Now it’s time to make plans for the funeral — always a difficult project. This time around it’s made more difficult, because Kashechewan presently is being evacuated. The Village drinking water is making everybody sick.
The water is contaminated with ecoli – even with a LOT of chorine added. The intake for the water supply is downstream from a sewer lagoon. People have been complaining about the water for years. A couple of years ago a report came out condemning the water and the water system. Nothing ever got done about any of that.
Last night in The Hospital one of the Staff told me that Hepatitis also is showing up in Kashechewan.
Now there are a lot of news stories going around. The Provincial and Federal Governments are squabbling with each other in a blame game. However, so far, anyway, the evacuation is proceeding. There’s talk of rebuilding the village — on higher ground, with potable drinking water. But that will take time.
Of course this reminds me of Katrina: neglect of an impoverished population, politicians ducking for cover when the problem hits the news media.
Here the problem seems to simmer under the surface for years. When I first got here (now three years ago) I used to hear “Well, that’s the way things are” all the time. Being an American, and rude, I would speak up just about every time I came across prejudice and discrimination. I wrote up a lot of stuff on UPS, because their corporate/systemic blindness/cynicism exemplified the attitude white outsiders had towards Native People up here.
I had an interesting conversation with another (white) cleric on this matter. He suggested that, as an American, I had a much keener sensitivity towards racial issues than many Canadians. His remark was that ‘they just don’t see it’ — the way Americans often do. His point was that we had been sensitized by our own racial issues over the years.
Well, now there are plenty of Canadians who DO see the racial connotations in Kashechewan’s drinking water, and they are speaking up — judging from the correspondence that’s gone into some of the papers (Globe & Mail, I think…) One correspondent called the Kashechewan matter a national disgrace — like, a political moral failure.
We’re talking about a couple of thousand people here in Kashechewan….. Did George Bush ever call Katrina a disgrace?
Meanwhile plans for the funeral go ahead, in the hope that, finally, perhaps, Anthony might come home.
Some links that may last for a while and lead to some relevant newspaper articles…