Shoal Lake 40 toasts clean water

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This article was published 15/09/2021 (1507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SHOAL LAKE 40 FIRST NATION – As he raised his glass, Chief Vernon Redsky looked at the water and a memory came rushing back. It reminded him of when he was a kid, he said, and the water in Shoal Lake was crystal-clear like that, back when he and his friends would splash along the shore, drinking from the lake when they got thirsty.

So he thought about that as he clinked his glass against two others, and took a sip. A toast, to the first officially safe tap drinking water in Shoal Lake 40: on Wednesday, after 24 years, the Treaty Three First Nation’s boil water advisory officially ended.

“It’s surreal to be at this moment,” Redsky said at a ceremony to celebrate the achievement, as well as the opening of the community’s new school.

One day earlier, a government official in Kenora, Ont., had officially approved the latest test results from Shoal Lake 40’s new water treatment plant, which started pumping this summer. That night, Redsky couldn’t sleep; he called a former chief to talk about the long road they had travelled to get to this point.

“All the struggles we had over those 20 years is finally coming to an end,’” Redsky said. “It’s worth it. Representing the community in this capacity is worth it when you’re able to achieve what we’re achieving today. A new school, and the water plant. It’s unbelievable that it’s happening today.”

For decades, Shoal Lake 40 members had fought for this moment. The Anishinaabe First Nation, 170 km east of Winnipeg on the Manitoba-Ontario border, had been turned into an island by a canal cut for the aqueduct system that supplies Winnipeg with its water; it was isolated, plagued by logistical challenges.

After years of tireless advocacy, in 2016 the First Nation secured enough funding from the federal, Manitoba and Winnipeg governments to build its Freedom Road, which connects it to the Trans-Canada Highway. Within weeks, work began on the $33-million water plant to deliver water to roughly 100 homes.

Now, a short drive up the road from the new school, the water plant sits on a hill overlooking the lake. Inside, lead operator Anthony Green checked on a machine that purifies water with ultraviolet light; minutes earlier, he’d started texting his family to tell them that the boil water advisory had ended.

“Everybody’s amazed right now,” Green said. “They can’t believe it. Some of them are like, ‘I’m not going to drink it for awhile,’ because it’s just ingrained, using that bottled water. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

As a youth, Green moved to Kenora, where he struggled for years but found a new purpose after the birth of his first child a few years ago. He had worked in what he calls “the water business,” but later trained as a welder; he never imagined his own community would get a plant.

But last year, a former instructor called him with the opportunity to be Shoal Lake 40’s plant operator; he got the job. At the time, Green’s mother was dying of cirrhosis and was in a coma. Even still, when he told her the news — “mom, I got the job,” he told her — a tear ran down her cheek. The nurses were amazed: “she heard you,” they said.

“I was crying, I was happy that she heard me, because I thought she was pretty much gone already,” Green said, chatting in the plant’s office. “To see her move and cry, oh man I couldn’t even handle it. It was just amazing. And I’m sure she’s here right now.”

At his side is backup operator Cedar Copenace Redsky, who at 19 wasn’t even born when the boil water advisory started. He too has had to leave the community; as a hockey player with the Kenora Thistles, there was no way to stay in Shoal Lake 40 and make the journey back and forth, before Freedom Road.

After graduating from high school, he joined a work crew that built the community’s water lines; earlier this year, he was offered a job as the plant’s operator in training. He leaped at the chance: he loved learning about water, and practising chemistry and math, and above all being part of Shoal Lake 40’s future.

“It’s been a heck of a journey so far,” he said. “It’s nice to know that you’re providing your community with clean water. That’s a pretty big accomplishment. It feels good. On the way in this morning, that’s all I could think about, excitement for us and the community members that the boil water advisory was finally being lifted.”

For Green, when he thinks of what his work means to Shoal Lake 40’s future, his thoughts turn closest to home.

“I just want to give my son the life I never had,” Green said. “I want him to experience everything that I never got to.”

This is only the end of one chapter for Shoal Lake 40. It is not the end of the story.

Because sometimes, when chief Redsky visits other First Nations, he envies the infrastructure they have which wasn’t possible in Shoal Lake 40, without a road. So there’s “some more catch-up,” he said, but the road was the key. The road, and then the water, and now Shoal Lake 40 has unlocked its future.

“It’s never going to end, I’m going to tell you that right now,” Redsky said, with a chuckle. “There’s still lots of work that needs to be done.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca