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Thousands of Island Lake residents still haul their drinking water in pails from a community tap and rely on outhouses or latrine buckets that some dump on the ground close to home. What will it take for these Manitobans to secure what the United Nations recognizes as an essential human right to safe water and sanitation?

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Articles

  • Degrading third-world conditions one more hurdle for disabled man on reserve

    ST. THERESA POINT -- A little whistle means Kevin Taylor has managed to hoist himself over the slop pail by himself and doesn't need his mother's help.

  • Reserves to get upgrade

    Nine First Nations with the diciest drinking water will get upgrades to their treatment plants and pipes over the next four years -- good news for a province plagued with water woes.

  • Easy to judge, difficult to escape

    When we stepped into Richard Andrews' home in Wasagamack, we had only one question: Why the hell are you living here?

  • Red Sucker Lake water woes boil over

    OTTAWA -- The chief of a northern Manitoba First Nation says his reserve is nearing a water crisis after more than half of the band's residents were cut off from a primitive water system.

  • High & dry

    ISLAND LAKE -- Thousands of Manitoba residents an hour's flight from Winnipeg have no running water in their homes, putting them at increased risk for a host of health problems usually associated with the world's poorest countries.

  • Less water than a refugee camp

    ST. THERESA POINT -- Geordie Rae traipses wearily through the bush to a neighbour’s house a couple of times a day, panting under the weight of a plastic pail of water.

  • Dry zone

    On the otherwise empty wall of my cubicle is a single sheet of paper. "I need runing water today," it says in the shaky handwriting of an elder from Wasagamack.

  • Poor sanitation, poor health

    ST. THERESA POINT -- Baby Jacob’s face is covered in crusting sores that look painful, but he sleeps in his mother’s arms, beautiful moccasins made by his great-grandmother on his dangling feet.

  • Getting tap water a miracle

    RACHEL Mason witnessed the miracle of her son recovering from a head injury and a month-long coma.

  • Winter, water-hauling a frigid mix

    WASAGAMACK -- Sam Harper spent his 69th birthday in March hauling drinking water up from frozen Island Lake.