For many northwestern Ontario students, going to high school means leaving their First Nation communities and families for Thunder Bay. This is their journey back
For many Northwestern Ontario students, going to high school means leaving their First Nation communities and families for Thunder Bay. This is their journey backNearly every year, the halls of Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School in Thunder Bay empty for a few days in late winter as a handful of students, teachers and the principal head out for an epic road trip to one of the 23 First Nations that make up the school’s community.
The odyssey is an emotional one for the kids and for their parents and caregivers alike. Thunder Bay is a city with a reputation for being dangerous for young Indigenous people. And kids are billeted by strangers, during teen years, some of the most turbulent in a lifespan. Between 2000 and 2011, six students died; their deaths and one other were subsequently the subject of a coroner’s inquest.
“I was pretty nervous. I was nervous about what people would say about me. I didn’t know if there would be any other Native kids, but I was told that there would. I wasn’t sure about making friends, but thankfully the first day, some people actually came and said hi to me when I was like 10 years old.”
The winter road begins at Weagamow Lake. Air transport is costly, so the road is a vital tool for getting supplies into remote communities.
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