As reporters, we see all aspects of the human condition in our days' work. We stay objective and keep ourselves outside the story. But occasionally, we come across a story that touches us more than the others. This is one we encountered in 2007.
HOW could such a beautiful place be filled with so much ugliness?
That's one of the lingering questions that has stuck with me following a whirlwind 36-hour trip to Pauingassi earlier this year.
Mourners tend to the grave of Adam Keeper, who drown after being bullied by three older boys in Pauingassi.
I'd been sent to cover the death of six-year-old Adam Keeper, who police said had been drowned in a lake by three slightly older boys in a tragic case of bullying.
The float plane ride from Winnipeg to the isolated northeastern Manitoba reserve may have only taken 45 minutes, but this grief-stricken community felt like an entirely foreign world to me.
I recall marvelling at the lush green forest, clear blue water and rugged terrain below as our flight touched down. Just moments later, I was fighting back tears, staring at the open casket of a little boy while a few hundred mourners packed inside a sweltering school gymnasium to say goodbye.
I watched the many children in the gym, wondering how they were reacting to seeing death so closely. Sadly, I would learn they'd watched this kind of scene play out countless times before in their young lives.
That really hit home at the makeshift gravesite, where kids crowded around the large hole in the ground and played in the dirt that had been removed.
I cringed as details emerged on the boys who allegedly killed Adam but were too young to be charged.
The nine-year-old who was born to a 15-year-old mother who drank during her unplanned pregnancy, leaving him with fetal alcohol syndrome, a short attention span and an even shorter fuse.
The eight-year-old who had already seen his 13-year-old sister get arrested and held at the Manitoba Youth Centre for allegedly being involved in the brutal beating death of a young woman on this remote reserve months earlier.
The seven-year-old who didn't know where his father was, had a mother hospitalized in Winnipeg for diabetes and already has several siblings in the care of Child and Family Services while he was being raised by his grandparents.
A respected community leader candidly told me what ails his community, where a reported 98 per cent of the 450 adult residents are alcoholics.
And when the alcohol starts flowing, people who would normally shake their neighbour's hand are ready to stab them in the back.
He said young children have also been exposed to far too much death and appear desensitized by it.
"You hear talk about kids being influenced by what they see on TV, or in movies. But they don't get that here. They learn from what is actually happening around them. They've all seen the violence," he said.
I saw it, too, or at least the aftermath. But I also saw a place of exquisite beauty and untapped potential.
And I hope to make a return trip to Pauingassi one day where those virtues -- and not violence -- will be the real story.
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