May 20thLiving in a Changing Climate: Stories of Wildfire Impact in Cross Lake - Pimicikamak Cree Nation
Submitted by: Climate Action Working Group of Mennonite Church Manitoba
On Saturday, April 11, 45 people gathered at Canadian Mennonite University to hear stories from residents of Cross Lake and Pimicikimak First Nation. Organized by the MCM Climate Action Working Group in collaboration with the MCM Indigenous Solidarity Working Group and members of Sterling Mennonite Fellowship, the event was meant to provide space for southern Manitobans to hear about the impact of wildfires in the community in summer 2025.
Stories were shared by:
- Carol Ross – Member of Living Word Mennonite Church, Wildfire Evacuee and Emergency Response Team Worker Pimicikamak (shared via phone interview)
- Jackson Osbourne – Historian, Activist and Elder from Pimicikamak Cree Nation
- Bob Smith – Mayor of Cross Lake and member of Pimicikamak Cree Nation
As part of the gathering, Jonathan Neufeld, MC Canada Indigenous Relations, was asked to provide a listener’s response. The following are his reflections in written form:
Thank you to Mennonite Church Manitoba’s Working Groups for Climate Action and Indigenous Solidarity, in collaborating to bring forward an intersectional conversation space. The climate change experiences of Pimicikamak and other Northern Indigenous communities is an important window into the shared concerns of climate action and Indigenous relations.
Elder Jackson Osbourne, currently evacuated to Winnipeg due to another crisis (Pimicikamak experienced 3 evacuations for 3 different reasons in 2026), always starts a presentation with a statement along the lines of – ‘This is more than a power outage.’ In other words, the overlapping and layered causes of concern in northern communities like Pimicikamak are legion.
Bob Smith and Jackson Osbourne relayed how Pimicikamak’s story can be told from the perspective of before and after Manitoba Hydro built the JenPeg Hydroelectric Dam. Before the dam was built, when the community lived off the land and wild food, there were no records of diabetes or kidney disease. With the flooding of territory cutting off trap lines and chasing away game, and causing unstable and polluted waters for fishing – residents had to go further away to harvest healthy wild food. With that diminished capacity, people turned to processed foods purchased at the grocery store and the health story ever afterwards has been challenged by health across generations.
With many people in a health challenged state – the smoke from wildfires adds another level of negative impact on the heart and respiratory condition of residents. It is not wildfire that threatens human life in the north, as much as the smoke and ash.
There were four themes I heard from the three sets of stories:
Invitation to Empathy and Compassion – Being evacuated from your home is more than relocation. The process of evacuation is traumatic – with long waits to be ferried to a neighbouring community by ferry or plane, leaving behind homes that you don’t know will be there when you return. Grief, fear, loss, anxiety, tension, exhaustion and medical concerns are also on board. Evacuees were separated from communities and families of support, sometimes by thousands of kilometers. Crowded evacuation shelters and confining hotel rooms ruptured relationships. Lack of sleep and predatory threats waited in the cities. The churches and Manitobans generally – should be concerned and care about the lives that are threatened by wildfires, and the long-term traumatic stress impacts that people live with today.
Listen to the Voices from Down River – Lives in southern Manitoba are enabled by the sacrifice of lives and livelihoods in the north. Here in the south, our heat in the winter and AC in the summer is sourced from the north. Our access to cabins and beachfronts on Lake Winnipeg are preserved as the lake is the holding tank for Northern Hydro production. Winnipeg pipes in pristine drinking water from Shoal Lake, while the north drinks from waters downstream from the Red and Assiniboine Rivers – with the chemical and bacterial loads of agricultural and urban run-off. In addition to impacts named above, tinder dry forest territories, shortened winter road seasons, and forest ash run-off are making life in the north increasingly unstable, unsupported, and unaffordable. Being a climate refugee from the north is a real possibility, while at the same time Pimicikamak wants to remain on the land, on the water and have the best life there for generations to come. People of the south need to address how our lifeways have negative impacts in the north.
An acknowledgement of interdependence – We are in this together. Pimicikamak wants to live together, healthy and well in community and in relationship to the land and its provincial neighbours. Gratitude was expressed for all the ways Manitoba, Canadian, and International friends came to help Pimicikamak in its time of crisis. Cultivating a grateful relationship to Creation and all it does to sustain and support life is important. Being in relationship is a way to cultivate trust. As we listen and connect with each other we can develop shared understandings about how to work together for a better future for everyone. No one needs to be sacrificed for the benefit of some.
Self-Determination – Pimicikamak has the knowledge, wisdom, experience and PEOPLE to look after their community and the land. What they need is political, financial, and social support, and reliable infrastructure (ie. more than one road or powerline into a community). Plans for disaster management must include First Nations in evacuation and support service teams. There were no Indigenous people working for the Red Cross – resulting in language barriers, cultural offense and confusion. Better yet – avoid evacuations all together. Train local people to fight fires rather than watch them, and provide local people with the equipment they need to respond urgently and quickly. People are evacuated due to smoke – and would/could prefer to shelter in place, if houses were outfitted with air filtration systems. Sheltering in place would avoid all the social dislocation impacts named above. Keeping the community together would be better for everyone. The reality after evacuation is that social fabric has been disrupted in ways that will take years to repair. The people who have identity and personhood in the land, who know the land and are kept alive by the land need to be resourced and supported to protect what they love.
Once again, I am grateful for those who gathered to listen to leaders from Pimicikamak. I pray for the day that we will live like the interdependent lives that we are…
The mission of the CAWG is “to ignite the imagination of MCM congregations in generating personally and societally transformative actions in response to the climate crisis. The CAWG will serve as a network and resource for congregational engagement in public policy and capacity building work toward a Just Transition here in Manitoba.”
To learn more about our work, please visit www.mennochurch.mb.ca/get-involved/cawg or find us on Instagram @mcm_cawg.