To local leaders in the remote village of Old Crow in Yukon’s far north, the young Quebec couple who got off a plane last Friday immediately “looked out of place.”

When they asked the man and woman what had brought them to town, they were shocked by the response: The pair had driven across the country to Whitehorse and then flown to Old Crow to seek refuge from the coronavirus pandemic — a journey inspired by a dream.

“They perceived our community as a life raft from COVID-19,” Dana Tizya-Tramm, chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, told the Star.

Townsfolk knew what they had to do: Isolate the couple and get them on the next flight out. In the Arctic community of roughly 280 people, Old Crow has only one nursing station and a doctor who flies in once every couple of months; they can’t risk the chance of a coronavirus outbreak.

About 48 hours later, police escorted the couple onto a plane, which took them back to Whitehorse.

“With the low capacity within remote communities we’re more susceptible to the virus than large cities. You’ll be endangering remote communities. They have not only endangered themselves but our community as well,” Tizya-Tramm said.

“Old Crow is not open for business.”

The bizarre case, first reported by VICE Media and CBC North, underscores the concern that leaders in remote communities all across the country have been expressing for days: They welcome visitors, but now’s not the time to be travelling.

On Monday, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, reiterated this point in a conference call with reporters. People wanting to travel north so they can get out of large urban centres should not, as the result in small communities could be “catastrophic” if someone unknowingly brings the virus with them.

“My colleagues in Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon are very concerned about having people coming from places like Alberta, B.C., Ontario, where we know we’re having local transmission,” Hinshaw said.

“They’re concerned about having cases imported into northern and more remote areas where … health care services are somewhat limited and just not robust.”

The Star reached out to the couple Monday at the Whitehorse hotel where they’re in isolation. A woman answered the phone, but hung up. When the Star called later, staff said they were out for a walk. They did not return messages.

The fly-in community of Old Crow is located in a region said to be rich in ice age fossils and known for its history of muskrat trapping and caribou hunting. Its streets are lined with log cabins and smokehouses.

Paul Josie, the Old Crow’s emergency management co-ordinator, said the couple landed Friday morning with a handful of other passengers on an Air North flight.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Josie said he’s been handing out materials to arriving passengers with instructions on how to self-isolate.

He said the couple from Quebec immediately stood out.

“Living in a fishbowl, you recognize faces,” he said. “Usually the people that come up that are essential workers, you know them as well.”

Initially, Josie thought they just might be flying through to another destination. But then he noticed their luggage tags said “YOC,” the airport call letters for Old Crow.

He started in with the questions.

They told him they were in town in search of work and a place to stay.

After consulting with Tizya-Tramm, Josie decided to immediately isolate the couple in one of the apartments above the Co-op store in town.

“They were going to walk up to the community. I told them it’s not a good idea,” Josie said. Instead he had them load their suitcases and backpacks onto the toboggan connected to his snowmobile and he drove them into town.

“My goal and priority was to get them to where they were staying and make sure there was no contact in the community.”

He said the couple did not raise a fuss.

Kelli Howie, general manager of the Old Crow Retail Co-op store, said the couple was instructed to remain in their room and that if they needed food they could call the store and have it delivered.

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At one point, she said, they ordered a dozen eggs, bacon, bread and butter. The cost for their two-night stay was $300 a night, which they put on a credit card.

As they settled in, Howie said she couldn’t help but wonder: What made them think they could just fly into town like that?

“If you don’t have a job, and don’t have business here, don’t come here. We lack the services. We have a nurse, three police officers. Don’t come. Stay where you are,” she said.

“If you bring (coronavirus) here you’ve wiped out the community. It’s that simple.”

Tizya-Tramm said he later spoke to the couple by phone and learned of their intent to move to the community.

“They said they sold everything to get here,” he said. “It was just an irrational fear … you can hear and feel it through the phone. They were scared. They felt like Old Crow was the safest place in Canada to weather the COVID-19 storm.”

He said the couple told him that the idea to come to Old Crow came to them in their sleep.

“He told me they made contact with the community through a dream.”

Unfortunately for this couple, he said, “dreams are not passports.”

“When I told him there was no available housing, he literally asked, ‘What should I do?’ ” Tizya-Tramm said. “He indicated to me they had no plan B.”

Yukon RCMP confirmed Monday in an email they had been notified about the couple’s arrival over the weekend.

“We were then requested to assist in ensuring their departure on Sunday, March 29th, which was carried out safely,” the email said.

As for whether charges were being contemplated under the Public Health Act, RCMP directed that question to Yukon government officials.

Sunny Patch, deputy chief of staff for the government of Yukon, said in a brief email “there are no charges at this time and the couple have been isolated.”

Back in Old Crow, community members were praising the swift preventative measures.

“Everybody did what they were supposed to do,” Howie said.

The only chore left for her was to find someone to sanitize the apartment above her store.

With files from Kieran Leavitt and Alex McKeen

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