Sioux Valley Dakota Nation borders the heavily travelled Trans-Canada Highway in western Manitoba, yet the community held back waves of COVID-19 cases that swept the area last year.
In the opposite corner of the province, Shamattawa First Nation, a remote fly-in community in northeastern Manitoba, had an outbreak so severe that the Canadian military was flown in to help after one-third of the 1,500 residents were infected.
MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
COVID-19 checkstops on the roads into Peguis FN only allowing residents and essential workers in.
How the two communities, situated 900 kilometres apart, have been impacted by the pandemic speaks to the complexity of COVID-19, and the dramatic variabilities among the 63 reserves in Manitoba.
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Handout
This time of year, with the temperature plunging below -20 C, a snowmobile and an ice chisel are required tools for anyone in Tataskweyak Cree Nation in need of fresh water.
There’s the bottled stuff, trucked into town courtesy of the federal government, but the weekly shipment of 1,500 cases is only sufficient to meet basic consumption needs. For cleaning, cooking and basic hygiene water, many residents need a supplementary source. And rather than use their tainted tap water, they follow a snowmobile trail several kilometres to Assean Lake, pails in hand.