GINOOGAMING — Cars and trucks line the road on either side of the bridge that connects Ginoogaming First Nation to nearby Longlac, as people park at either end and get out to walk across the span in icy November weather.
It's been just over a week since an engineering consultant declared the Making Ground River Bridge unfit for cars and trucks and Ginoogaming First Nation council declared a state of emergency.
The bridge, a vital link to the community of Longlac for Ginoogaming members, remains closed to vehicle traffic.
“I have my staff working tirelessly to find solutions,” Chief Sheri Taylor said Thursday in a Zoom interview.
“We’re trying to find the fastest and quickest and safest way we can get a temporary resolution in place, whether it’s culverts or a temporary bridge that could be put in place.”
But the reality is that her small First Nation is “under capacity” for addressing such problems, she added.
“It’s hard on all of us,” Taylor told Newswatch.
“I live in the community, too. And, you know, it’s hard that we have to transport our children by foot across the bridge from one end to the other. It’s not ideal.
Longlac resident is Dale Winn is one of those bridge-crossers, he has two great-granddaughters to bring to daycare and back.
He and the girls walk across, then get into a waiting car to get driven to the daycare in Ginoogaming in the morning, he explained.
The process is repeated in the afternoon when he must take them home from daycare, he said.
Hopefully, he said, the situation won’t carry on for long and there will be a solution before Christmas.
“It’s inconvenient, but it’s something that we have to do to get the kids to daycare,” Winn said.
The alternate route to Longlac is on rough roads and takes close to an hour to drive. That's the route an ambulance or fire truck would have to take.
“I worry about real big emergencies like a house fire or somebody that needs medical care urgently.”
Taylor remarked that “every night I go to bed with this worry.”
Taylor says the quest for a timely fix continues, despite the small community's challenges with capacity.
“So that’s what I’m going to be looking for is a project manager and getting (Indigenous Services Canada) to look at funding that.”
Taylor said she has spoken with federal Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu since the emergency declaration – but not with Greg Rickford, Ontario’s minister of Indigenous affairs.
“He hasn’t called me or reached out to me in any way personally,” she said.
Speaking at a government media event the previous day in Greenstone, Rickford said he has put forward "a proposal for a tripartite table" of Ginoogaming, federal and provincial officials to hash out a solution.
"We're hopeful that we'll hear back from the community quickly and bring the feds to the table and get to work," he said.
According to Taylor, that proposal predates the closure of the bridge and the state of emergency by months.
Taylor said the province sold the bridge to a logging company decades ago and the business has done “absolutely nothing” since the engineering report.
“Ontario seems like they’re trying to wash their hands from being part of this” because they don’t own the bridge, Taylor said.
“Well, my answer to them is that you are very responsible. You made this, you helped to create this situation.”
Federal and provincial officials often talk of truth and reconciliation, so “they have to accept the truth,” she said. “And that is the truth.”
