Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
Temporary store to open in Grand Rapids
WINNIPEG – Grand Rapids hopes to have a temporary grocery store up and running within days after the northern community’s only grocery store burned to the ground Monday for the second time in less than a decade.
RCMP arrested a 17-year-old girl late Monday in connection with the blaze, which broke out shortly before 4 a.m. that day and caused an estimated $1 million in damage to the Grand Rapids Co-op. The teen is set to appear in Grand Rapids court July 29 on arson charges.
The future of the store is uncertain, but Grand Rapids mayor Robert Buck said a temporary store should be running in the town’s Northbrook Inn within days.
"The biggest need was, of course, the immediate need here in the community of Grand Rapids," said Buck. "I think we adequately addressed that."
The area of Grand Rapids has a population of around 1,500, a few hundred in the town of the same name and the rest living on the Misipawistik Cree Nation, formerly known as the Grand Rapids First Nation. The grocery store was on Misipawistik property. Chief Ovide Mercredi could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Buck said the future of the Co-op lies with the community, and said a meeting May 22 will determine whether the store is rebuilt or closes permanently.
"We’re pretty much in shock," said Brenda Cook, who chairs the board of the Co-op.
On Tuesday, residents of the community more than 400 kilometres north of Winnipeg feared they might have to drive two-and-a-half hours to The Pas for a good selection of groceries, or at least an hour to the smaller community of Easterville.
It’s not the first time the Grand Rapids Co-op has burned to the ground. The community lost its only grocery store, then located in the town site, to a fire in 2001. Buck said that blaze was caused by electrical problems.
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