The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Amiskosakahikan reserve would seem to have advantages over many other First Nations. As an immediate neighbour to Denare Beach, it is by no means secluded. And consisting of a few rows of houses, it's not so large that it requires an onerous operating budget. But in the view of some residents, Amiskosakahikan shares a common concern with other First Nations. 'The state of housing is terrible,' said 'William,' an Amiskosakahikan resident who asked that his real name not be published. 'Everything's falling apart. It needs to be better maintained.' William shares a very modest two-bedroom house on Amiskosakahikan with his partner and their six children. He worries mould under a portion of the floor and behind the kitchen cupboards is harming his children's health. 'My kids have been constantly sick for the past four years, having runny noses, coughing, respiratory problems,' William said. 'Kids shouldn't be living like this with all this black mould. It's not right.' William also relayed how a section of drywall once fell off of the wall and into the bathtub as his partner bathed. See 'Hole' on pg. Continued from pg. At another home on the reserve, a large hole has rotted through the floor of a back room. From the ceiling, water that looks like iced tea fills plastic buckets drop by drop. On the same leaky ceiling is a disconnected light bulb socket surrounded by orange rust. A drive through the reserve reveals other worrisome sights, such as broken windows and staircases of questionable sturdiness. Tom McDermott, another resident, is dismayed by what he sees. 'We have several families out at Denare Beach and one elder, possibly two elders, where the house is leaking, there's a hole in the floor, there's a hole in the bathroom,' he said. McDermott has concerns over how the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation (PBCN), to which the reserve belongs, distributes the housing repair budget on Amiskosakahikan. William said he has been raising concerns over his home with PBCN for the past four years without seeing much progress. When he spoke to The Reminder in February, he sounded as though he had lost hope. 'Everything is falling apart. We just gotta live with what we got, I guess,' he said. William called housing a community-wide problem. 'We would like better housing, more structures coming up instead of using old and damaged materials,' he said. The Reminder made multiple attempts to obtain on-the-record comments from PBCN relative to housing but has not heard back from the band. PBCN consists of eight communities, including Amiskosakahikan, or Amisk Lake, Deschambault Lake, Kinoosao, Pelican Narrows, Prince Albert, Sandy Bay, Southend and Sturgeon Landing.
