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CBC
29-05-2025
- Climate
- CBC
First Nations plead for help as wildfires devastate northern Sask.
Social Sharing People with property in northeast Saskatchewan as well as the Official Opposition, are calling on the government to declare a provincial state of emergency amid a rapidly escalating, early wildfire season. On Wednesday, the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation and Montreal Lake Cree Nation declared a joint state of emergency. In light of the severity of the wildfire situation, First Nations leaders said in a press release that they have "deep concerns" over critical shortages in firefighting resources, personnel and air support. The declaration demands direct meetings with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, federal ministers, and members of Parliament. "We are urgently calling on Premier Scott Moe and Prime Minister Mark Carney to deploy more firefighting personnel, increase air support — including water bombers — and ensure emergency accommodations for evacuees," said Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte of the Prince Albert Grand Council. Thousands evacuated as wildfires burn across Sask. 11 hours ago Duration 1:57 The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency says this is one of the worst wildfire seasons in decades and that most of the fires are human-caused. As of Wednesday, there were nearly 20 active wildfires across the province. Chief Peter A. Beatty of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation said in the press release that many First Nations communities are becoming boxed in due to road closures and limited evacuation routes. "We are doing everything possible on the ground, but this situation is beyond our capacity to manage alone," said Beatty. Late on Wednesday, the community of Weyakwin, on Highway 2 west of Montreal Lake, issued an evacuation order. East Trout Lake suffers substantial loss Nathan Pitka is one of many who wants a provincial state of emergency declared. Two fires that have been burning in the Narrow Hills Provincial Park area — the Camp fire and Shoe fire — have merged into the largest fire in the province. That fire prompted an evacuation order in the Resort Subdivision of East Trout Lake, where his cottage is located. On Wednesday, East Trout Lake, located approximately 160 kilometres southeast of La Ronge, declared a state of emergency. The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said East Trout Lake has received "substantial loss." Pitka fled to stay with his parents in Saskatoon on Monday. He told CBC he believes his cabin burned down, but does not yet have confirmation. His family has been going there for 48 years. Pitka wrote a letter to Moe, who has yet to publicly speak on the wildfire crisis, asking for more communication and for help to be brought in. "I wrote the letter because no one else was saying what urgently needed to be to be said. I mean, we're watching communities burn in real time," Pitka said. "It felt like the rest of the province didn't even know this was happening. So I just thought I needed to say something." At last count, the Shoe fire covered 216,000 hectares. When Whiteswan Lake, 130 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert, was evacuated on Monday, Walter Halliday decided to stay behind. The operational manager of Whiteswan Lake Lodge said there's little information available to those from the community about what is happening and what is being done to get the wildfires under control. As of midnight on Wednesday, there were 19 active wildfires burning in Saskatchewan, nine of which are not contained. According to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, the province has made requests for crews, equipment and more aircraft. There is already a water bomber from Alaska and two from Quebec working in the province. Opposition Leader, northern MLAs call for provincial action On Wednesday, in response to the wildfires in his province, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew ordered a state of emergency and received assurances of emergency military aid from Ottawa. In a release that evening, Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck, Athabasca MLA Leroy Laliberte and Cumberland MLA Jordan McPhail said Moe and his government must do the same. They also called for the province to commit to daily public briefings. These, they said, are to ensure "all essential — potentially lifesaving — information reaches people impacted by this wildfire crisis in Saskatchewan's North."
CBC
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
8 books to read if you loved A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby
Social Sharing Podcaster and wellness advocate Shayla Stonechild championed A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, which was written with Mary Louisa Plummer, to victory on Canada Reads 2025! In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade. Here are eight other Canadian books to read if you loved A Two-Spirit Journey. Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott Becoming a Matriarch tells the story of Helen Knott's experience losing both her mother and grandmother in just over six months. The book explores themes of mourning, sobriety through loss and generational dreaming and redefines what it means to truly be a matriarch. Knott is a poet, social worker and writer of Dane Zaa, Cree, Métis and mixed European descent from the Prophet River First Nation. She is also the author of the memoir In My Own Moccasins, which won the 2020 Saskatchewan Book Award for Indigenous Peoples' Publishing. Mamaskatch by Darrel J. McLeod Mamaskatch tells the story of Darrel J. McLeod's upbringing on Treaty 8 territory in northern Alberta, raised by his fierce Cree mother, Bertha. In describing memories of moose stew and wild peppermint tea, surrounded by siblings and cousins, he outlines his mother's experiences as a residential school survivor and how she taught him to be proud of his heritage. McLeod was the writer of two memoirs, Mamaskatch and Peyakow, and one novel, . He became a writer after retiring from a career as a chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations. He died in 2024 at the age of 67. The Power of Story by Harold R. Johnson The Power of Story reflects on the power of storytelling — from personal narratives to historical sagas — as they relate to humanity and even how humans structure societies. Harold R. Johnson makes a case for how stories can shape and change our lives for the better in this posthumous nonfiction work. Johnson was a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. He was a lawyer and writer whose groundbreaking book Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours) was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction. His other books include Peace and Good Order and Cry Wolf. He died in 2022 at the age of 64. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot In Heart Berries, Terese Marie Mailhot traces her life story. She recalls her dysfunctional upbringing on Seabird Island in B.C., with an activist mother and abusive father, and achieving an acceptance into the Masters of Fine Art program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. Heart Berries is a memorial for her mother, a story of reconciliation with her father and a way to write her way out of trauma. Mailhot is a writer who was born and raised on Seabird Island, B.C. and now lives in Indiana. Her work has appeared in Time, Mother Jones, The Guardian and Best American Essays 2019. Alicia Elliott explores the systemic oppression faced by Indigenous peoples across Canada through the lens of her own experiences as a Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River in A Mind Spread Out on the Ground. Elliott examines how colonial violence, including the loss of language, seeps into the present day lives of Indigenous people, often in the form of mental illness. Elliott is based in Brantford, Ont. Her writing has been published most recently in Room, Grain and The New Quarterly. She is also the author of the novel And Then She Fell, which won the 2024 Amazon First Novel Award. Elliott is a columnist for CBC Arts and CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2019. She was chosen by Tanya Talaga as the 2018 recipient of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. Our Voice of Fire by Brandi Morin In Our Voice of Fire, journalist and writer Brandi Morin recounts her experience as a foster kid, runaway and survivor of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis. It follows her journey overcoming adversity to pursue justice and find her power though journalism. Morin is a writer of Cree, Iroquois and French origin from Treaty 6 territories in Alberta. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, CBC and The New York Times. Thunder Through My Veins by Gregory Scofield Gregory Scofield is a poet who has helped shape contemporary Indigenous writing. But the path to becoming an accomplished writer wasn't easy. Scofield's father left him when he was five years old and he grew up surrounded by violence and poverty. But he had the love of his mother, the support of a kind neighbour and a desire to figure out who he was and what he wanted. Thunder Through My Veins is a memoir that recounts Scofield's early life and his experiences defining his identity and place in the world. Thunder Through My Veins was originally published in 1999, when Scofield was 33, and was re-released with a new foreword in 2020. Scofield is a Red River Métis of Cree, Scottish and European descent. He was the 2016 recipient of the Latner Writers' Trust Poetry Prize, a $25,000 award given to an accomplished mid-career poet. His poetry collections include The Gathering and Witness, I Am. From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle Jesse Thistle is a Métis-Cree academic specializing in Indigenous homelessness, addiction and intergenerational trauma. For Thistle, these issues are more than just subjects on the page. After a difficult childhood, Thistle spent much of his early adulthood struggling with addiction while living on the streets of Toronto. Told in short chapters interspersed with poetry, his memoir From the Ashes details how his issues with abandonment and addiction led to homelessness, incarceration and his eventual journey through higher education. From the Ashes was the top-selling Canadian book in 2020, the winner of the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Nonfiction, Indigenous Voices Award and the High Plains Book Award. It was also a finalist for Canada Reads 2020, when it was championed by George Canyon. Jesse Thistle is Métis-Cree, from Prince Albert, Sask., and an assistant professor in Humanities at York University in Toronto. Thistle won a Governor General's Academic Medal in 2016. He is a 2016 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar and a 2016 Vanier Scholar. He is also the author of the poetry collection Scars and Stars.
CBC
07-03-2025
- General
- CBC
Prof says trapper's boar kill shows 'tsunami of wild pigs' is encroaching on northern Sask.
A wild boar killed above the tree line in north-central Saskatchewan is evidence feral pigs continue migrating across the Prairies and into the Boreal forest, says a professor who has studied the barrel-bodied beasts for decades. "This has been a disaster in slow motion, and a tsunami of wild pigs has been moving from the south further and further north every year," said Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan professor in the department of animal and poultry science. Wild boars — or feral pigs — eat almost anything and are very adaptable to different habitats. They travel in groups called "sounders" and are known to be aggressive, destructive and hard to find given their nocturnal nature. The encounter was first reported by news outlet larongeNow, which interviewed Montreal Lake Cree Nation member Jarret Nelson after his son shot a wild boar while they checked a trap line near Weyakwin, about 285 kilometres north of Saskatoon. Brook said he spoke with Nelson and plans to visit Weyakwin on the weekend to meet locals and offer insight as head of the Canadian Wild Pig Research Project. "These pigs continue to spread completely uncontrolled on the Canadian Prairies and certainly this is just another piece of evidence showing that uncontrolled spread," Brook said. Wild boars are considered an invasive species that can cause a lot of damage and are notorious for destroying crops. In the north, wild boars could impact the food chain, from berry patches to large mammals, Brook said. Brook called them "ecological train wrecks" with an indiscriminate appetite. "They'll eat small mammals like mice and other native small mammals," he said. "They will eat eggs of any ground-nesting birds. They'll kill the adults if they can, which they often do. And they'll eat, in the spring, thousands of goslings and ducklings and other ground nesting birds. They'll kill anything up to and including an adult whitetail deer." The sighting doesn't surprise trapper Barry Carriere, president of the Northern Saskatchewan Trappers Association. He said wild boars this far north are still rare, but there have been sporadic sightings is area around Nipawin for at least 15 years. "They are very destructive and they reproduce really fast, you know, so if we don't do anything about them they are going to take over the North," Carriere said. He plans to raise the issue at the association's next annual general meeting this spring. The province banned new wild boar farms as of Jan. 1 and imposed new rules on existing farms, including requirements for additional surveillance, improved record keeping and follow-ups for annual inspections. There were 15 wild boar farms in Saskatchewan as of July 2024, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Wild boars also spread diseases and contaminate water sources. In the U.S., the animals cause an estimated $2.5 billion US of damage annually. It's not known how many pigs are living in the wild across the province, but the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation (SCIC) received between 10 and 15 verified sightings per year over the last five years and has removed 1,000 pigs from the province since establishing the feral wild boar control program 2015. Wild boars were purposely crossbred with pink domestic pigs to make a larger animal with a faster reproductive rate. The barrel-like bodies of wild boars can weigh up to 300 pounds. Their size and sharp tusks mean people should be careful when hiking in the back country, Brook said. He recommends carrying pepper spray, because feral pigs are known to charge and injure humans. "If there are signs of pigs, certainly leave the area," Brook said. "In any encounter with the pig you should get out of that and into a vehicle or building as fast as you can."
