It has been a year since 29-year-old Franklin Kwandibens died from a single stab wound in Mishkeegogamang First Nation.
Monday’s memorial to commemorate Kwandibens’ passing fell on the same week as Mishkeegogamang’s 2014 State of Emergency anniversary, which was called after a five members died in house fires over the previous year.
As the snow begins to melt, the community is planning to resume its search for 26-year-old mother of three, Charnelle Masakeyash who was declared missing in November.
The fabric of everyday life in the community 320 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay continues to rock under waves of trauma.
Mishkeegogamang Chief Connie Gray-McKay has long requested mental health supports for her 1,840 members but what little help is available at what she calls “ground zero” isn’t making a dent.
“The biggest thing when we declared the State Of Emergency on March 2, two weeks after the fire, the biggest ask was to have a clinical piece to stabilize people,” Gray-McKay said.
“Over 30 years, we’ve had just under 30 deaths due to fire. When you have that kind of experience, it re-traumatizes people. It’s the first time I’ve seen our operations/maintenance guy cry. This guy, time and time again, burying people.
“God help us.”
Unresolved trauma over fire deaths in Mishkeegogamang reach back to the late 1970s when seven children aged two to 13 died in a house fire.
Health Canada has committed $100,000 for a two-person office that conducts weekend direct observation therapy for those abusing prescription medication but limited resources are available beyond treating those already experiencing addiction.
“That’s your whole budget. How are we going to do other stuff with (prescription drug abuse) people? In all these supports, all you’ve got is Health Canada being your legal drug dealer,” Gray-McKay said.
“Where’s the clinical piece for these people? Who’s working with them on why they’re doing drugs in the first place?”
The Pashkokogan Healing Lodge on a nearby lake that shares its name was modified from an old school in the early 2000s. It’s equipped for extended family healing programs on the land but those programs cost between $30,000 and $50,000.
Gray-McKay said the federal government cut program funding in place for seven years at Pashkokogan that was showing promising results in overcoming inter-generational trauma.
She argued having properly-trained counselors in place at the facility would have a significant impact on Mishkeegogamang’s stability.
“You have all these fire deaths and ongoing sudden deaths and you have people who are grieving. All of a sudden, there’s another death and another death. People need to grieve properly in order to deal with their grief, they’ll drink, they’ll do drugs. It’s like a snowball effect. That’s what I see all the time.”
Gray-McKay’s has dedicated her tenure as chief to improving challenging housing conditions, which have been a factor in residential fires. Through investing $5-million over three years,
Mishkeegogamang has renovated 50 of the 83 units needing severe work and built 15 smaller cabins without water or hydro. A septic health crisis underway since 2008 has been abated through replacing plastic septic fields with more durable concrete models.
The effort reduced the First Nation’s per capita housing rate from nine occupants in every home to 7.9 and the prominence of health ailments that result from overcrowding have showed improvement.
The community is now applying to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation for 24 new units, including 6 duplex units for multiple families living under one roof.
“Despite all the good stuff going on, we’re still carrying on. You can make life as bearable as possible for people but if they’ve never dealt with the foundation of who they are, with what happened to them and their family, they’ll continue to drink and destroy the assets in the community.”
