NORTHWEST ANGLE 33 FIRST NATION, ONT.—At a reserve in Ontario on the corner of Manitoba and Minnesota, surrounded by lakes and vast swaths of boreal forest, Lara Stovern collects water from a pump house in case her reserve runs out of clean drinking water and needs to start boiling it again.

Stovern is a band councillor for Northwest Angle 33 First Nation who lives in an old house with no running water. She and other residents depend on bottled water. All of them are now preparing for an extended period of isolation, as they try to keep COVID-19 at bay. They have no dedicated grocery store, so rationing the clean drinking water they have has become a priority.

Stovern sits at her kitchen table talking to the reserve’s security team, who turn away people who are not from the reserve. Beside her sits a binder titled “Pandemic Plan & Protocols.” The lake, which acts as the community’s ice road, is starting to melt and she is bringing the security team back closer to land.

“You imagine the worst-case scenario and then you think this probably wouldn’t happen, and then it does,” says Stovern.

Remote Indigenous communities with poor infrastructure and a lack of access to clean drinking water are particularly susceptible to an outbreak of a virus or disease.

Before the Assembly of First Nations declared a state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic, Northwest Angle 33 had already implemented a shutdown due to “the excess strain on band resources.” Access to the community is now limited to band members, their family members and a construction crew working on a new water treatment facility.

“Right now the big concern is our drinking water, never mind the (new water treatment) plant itself,” says Stovern. “It’s unknown what that’s going to play out like moving forward.”

In February 2019, Northwest Angle 33 received $9.7 million for a water treatment plant as part of the federal government’s commitment to end long-term drinking water advisories in Indigenous communities by spring 2021. COVID-19 has put that deadline at risk.

Other First Nations have also implemented community shutdowns. And as at Northwest Angle 33, concerns over access to clean drinking water have surfaced, especially for those reliant on bottled water and awaiting the construction and maintenance of water treatment facilities.

Stovern says the main thing is protecting band members and their limited resources, such as bottled water.

During his recent press briefings in Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has commented that we live in unprecedented times, that the country has never had to make the kinds of decisions it is making now. It’s the same conversation Stovern had with other council members.

As the federal government prepares to send $305 million in COVID-19 aid to First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation communities, there is much uncertainty about the fate of infrastructure projects.

Indigenous Services Canada Minister Marc Miller said it isn’t known how the pandemic will affect the deadline for lifting long-term drinking water advisories.

A spokesperson for Indigenous Services said the COVID-19 pandemic is having impacts on the progress of major projects and that they are monitoring and are working with First Nations to mitigate the effects. The financial implications are also unknown.

The AFN has pressed the federal government to work with provincial officials to extend use of winter roads during this difficult period. The roads are critical infrastructure for the transfer of goods and services.

On the Angle Inlet reserve in Northwest Angle 33, residents are regularly isolated each spring and fall before the lake either freezes or melts, becoming their road, the only access for supplies, including water.

Northwest Angle 33 Chief Darlene Comegan has been lobbying for a road for years.

“If only we had a road, we wouldn’t be worried about access to the basic necessities like water, food or transportation for our people,” says Comegan. “We wouldn’t worry about crossing the border or losing a life from unstable ice.”

COVID-19 has exposed even more infrastructure concerns on the reserve, such as no professional health and nursing services, or food security.

“We don’t have the infrastructure to set up an operations centre in the event we come in contact with the virus,” says Comegan. “No one listens.”

Comegan says Kenora, Ont., MP Eric Melillo is currently lobbying for a road on their behalf.

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The AFN has said it has been assured that Indigenous citizens, who have distinct treaty rights, will not be affected by the current U.S.-Canada border closures.

In early April, the mayor of Kenora called for an end to non-essential travel between Manitoba and Ontario. And as the virus spreads, more services and stores in cities and towns close and more band members return home to Northwest Angle 33’s Angle Inlet reserve.

Security checkpoints are set up on the lake, the reserve’s winter road, to deny access to those who are not from the reserve. The panic buying in Kenora came at a particularly bad time for this remote community, which was already planning for its few weeks of isolation during the spring break-up of the ice road.

Jonathan Mallet and Victoria McPherson, water haulers for Angle Inlet, planned ahead. They hauled water across the frozen lake from Kenora for 20 days straight to stockpile the reserve with jugs of clean water.

The journey to fetch clean water normally takes eight hours, in which this family must cross through the U.S. border to reach Manitoba, and then re-enter Ontario.

“We were planning for March Break and started ahead of time,” says Mallet. They saw “the virus coming and worked every day for a while.”

As of March 18, Mallet says the community had 400 jugs of water. But the company they purchase water from in Kenora is in high demand right now and has experienced bottle shortages. Now, an empty bottle must be exchanged if you are to receive another full jug.

The bottled water is stocked and rationed at the community hall, which is uphill from the lake and farther along a dirt road. Mallet says the floors bend under the weight of the water. During winter freeze-up and fall break-up, the water jugs replace the furniture in the community hall, a few hundred jugs for the weeks during which they remain stranded.

Mallett has been hauling water since 2014, shortly before his daughter was born. A year later, he asked for assistance and the reserve started paying his fiancée to help. The reserve does not have specific funding to pay for the water haul and was forced to take money from the budget for their decaying water systems.

Lili Sioui is the Angle Inlet reserve’s only water operator and has been the point of contact for the construction team that has been hauling equipment across the lake over the past month.

Sioui says the plan is to have the contractors continue working on the water treatment plant. The construction company has included safety measures such as keeping away from community members, she says.

But the future is uncertain. Sioui says they are working with the Kenora Chiefs Advisory to ensure they have food, water and medical supplies.

“With the ice (road) about to go and our boundary issues it’s been quite a learning experience for everyone,” says Sioui. “I would like to think our emergency planning will now take a leap to the front of our concerns.”

Sioui hopes that this experience draws attention to her community’s need for an all-season road.

“This would bypass the border issues and improve the overall services to members,” she says.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Border Service Agency said in a statement that at this time, healthy, non-symptomatic people for whom crossing the border on a day-to-day basis is essential for work and daily life will still be permitted to cross the border.

All health screening at the border is based on queries and questionnaires.