This article was first published on APTN News in Canada.
A First Nation in northern Ontario is calling for a general evacuation of its residents after being without access to safe drinking for almost a week.
Kashechewan First Nation, a remote fly-in community located near the James Bay Coast, has been without a working water treatment system since 4 January.
The community says this has created a public health crisis with sewage backing up into people’s homes and contaminating the freshwater system. People are being warned not
Kashechewan First Nation Chief Hosea Wesley told APTN News the original plan was to only evacuate residents with medical conditions but this changed to all 2,200 residents after the local nursing station was flooded.
“When the clinic got flooded with sewer that’s when everything changes,” he said.
“Now we have to evacuate the whole community because the medical services are breached with sewer and back up in the clinic. You can smell the sewer as we speak right now. It’s really not good for people to go in. It’s a health and safety issue right now.”
Residents are in the process of being evacuated by plane to Timmins and Kapuskasing.
Wesley said the situation has been stressful on the community and particularly children.
“I feel sorry for the children right now to have to go through this time in 2026. It’s really sad to see children – babies – have to leave with this cold weather going to hosting communities. Trying to get the basic need of water to what’s going on in our community. At the same time, education is very important for the students. Now they have to miss these days because of infrastructure failing.”
In an emailed statement, Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) told APTN the government is working with a company called Northern Waterworks to fix the water and wastewater system.
The government said it is also working with another company, Loomex Group, to help coordinate the evacuation.
ISC said health services have been temporarily moved to the community school because of flooding at the nursing station.
Kashechewan has been dealing with water infrastructure problems for more than 30 years.
There is no current timeline for when the water treatment system will be fixed.
By Fraser Needham of APTN News.
