THE NORTHERN FRONT
Maclean's|October 2024
In Ontario's hinterlands, a battle is brewing between First Nations, prospectors and the provincial government over a multi-billion-dollar motherlode of metals. Inside the fight for the Ring of Fire.
Laura Trethewey
THE NORTHERN FRONT

Coleen Moonias grew up in the 1980s in Lansdowne House, a tiny Ojibwe community in northwestern Ontario. In winter, when the temperature plunged to 50 below zero, the interior walls of her home glittered with frost. Her parents hung blankets as insulation. In summer she foraged with her cousins for berries, fending off swarms of mosquitoes that rose from the surrounding peatlands. The nearest neighbouring community was nearly 100 kilometres away; Coleen's entire world was this small place bound by blood and marriage. But Lansdowne House was sinking into Attawapiskat Lake, and so, when Coleen was eight years old, its residents moved to a new location nearby, which became Neskantaga First Nation, home to about 400 people. During the move, Coleen flew to Thunder Bay to stay with her grandmother, where she saw white people and heard English for the first time. She even saw her first porcelain toilet bowl, which made a big impression on her.

In Neskantaga, her family lived in an insulated house, complete with electricity and plumbing. But as she got older, the contrast between her life and life in the south nagged at Coleen. In Neskantaga, people had to fight fires at the dump with buckets of water. Why didn't they have their own fire truck? Why wasn't there a high school, so families wouldn't have to relocate or separate so their kids could be educated? And why couldn't she drink the water? The community has been on a boil-water advisory for nearly 30 years, the longest in Canada; pallets of bottled water are flown in every week and stacked in living rooms and offices around the reserve. It creates the feeling of a neverending crisis, as though a hurricane swept through years ago and never left.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 2024-Ausgabe von Maclean's.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 2024-Ausgabe von Maclean's.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS MACLEAN'SAlle anzeigen
So You've Been Hacked - A new generation of ultra-sophisticated cybercriminals are targeting governments, corporations, hospitals and libraries and laying bare how ill-equipped Canada is to fight back
Maclean's

So You've Been Hacked - A new generation of ultra-sophisticated cybercriminals are targeting governments, corporations, hospitals and libraries and laying bare how ill-equipped Canada is to fight back

A new generation of ultra-sophisticated cybercriminals are targeting governments, corporations, hospitals and libraries and laying bare how ill-equipped Canada is to fight back.On a July morning in 2022, Brad Hynes, the IT manager for the town of St. Mary's in southwestern Ontario, was backing up the town's computer systems when things went haywire. File names became unintelligible strings of characters. Desktop icons went blank. File after file was impossible to open, a string of digital duds. The background wallpaper on Hynes's screen disappeared, replaced by the red-and-black logo of a Russian ransomware gang called LockBit. A line of all-caps text appeared: All your important files are stolen and encrypted!

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
September 2024
Bill of Health - I spent years with excruciating hip pain, languishing in Canada's health-care queue. I finally paid for private surgery-in Lithuania.
Maclean's

Bill of Health - I spent years with excruciating hip pain, languishing in Canada's health-care queue. I finally paid for private surgery-in Lithuania.

My hip pain started around 2015, when I was in my mid-30s. It began as stiffness, then the odd pinch or tweak. I live with my wife, Barbara, and our three kids on an acreage in Sturgeon County, Alberta, where we raise a handful of cows and some chickens. Our lives are very active. I'm also a maintenance supervisor at a nearby provincial park. That's a physical job, too-overseeing buildings, outhouses and campsites. I'm not exactly used to sitting still, so when my hip started to hurt, I pushed through it. I figured it was something minor and did some extra stretches. Instead, it got worse.

time-read
7 Minuten  |
September 2024
Green Scene - Montreal's Théâtre de Verdure stages plays and musical performances against a naturally beautiful backdrop
Maclean's

Green Scene - Montreal's Théâtre de Verdure stages plays and musical performances against a naturally beautiful backdrop

Théâtre de Verdure is a setting straight out of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream: a thespian's paradise in the middle of a lush woodland. Since 1956, the open-air stage has occupied an island in the middle of Montreal's Parc La Fontaine, exposing park-goers to regular, accessible (read: free) and dazzling productions.

time-read
2 Minuten  |
September 2024
Log Off To Find Love - Apps have gamified meeting and mating-and affected our social skills for the worse. The real future of dating is offline.
Maclean's

Log Off To Find Love - Apps have gamified meeting and mating-and affected our social skills for the worse. The real future of dating is offline.

In 2017, after being single for a few years, I wanted to get back into the dating game. I was newly sober at the time, so I wasn’t super-confident about venturing into my local bar scene in London, Ontario. Instead, I leapt into the world of digital dating via Bumble, which, back then, required women to send the first message. I thought, That’s feminist. I’m a feminist. Let’s try it! My first few months online provided me with an emotionally exhausting education.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
September 2024
"I escaped Gaza and sent my family to Egypt. Now, my goal is to reunite with them in Canada."
Maclean's

"I escaped Gaza and sent my family to Egypt. Now, my goal is to reunite with them in Canada."

Bombs destroyed my neighbourhood and killed my loved ones. I hope my family and I can find refuge in Quebec.

time-read
3 Minuten  |
October 2024
TIDAL WAVE
Maclean's

TIDAL WAVE

Susan Lapides chronicles her family's summers in a tiny New Brunswick fishing town

time-read
2 Minuten  |
October 2024
THE NORTHERN FRONT
Maclean's

THE NORTHERN FRONT

In Ontario's hinterlands, a battle is brewing between First Nations, prospectors and the provincial government over a multi-billion-dollar motherlode of metals. Inside the fight for the Ring of Fire.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
October 2024
THE CULTURE WAR IN THE CLASSROOM
Maclean's

THE CULTURE WAR IN THE CLASSROOM

Several provincial governments now mandate parental consent for kids to change pronouns in Schools. Who gets to decide a child's gender?

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
October 2024
THE JACKPOT GENERATION
Maclean's

THE JACKPOT GENERATION

Canada is in the midst of the greatest wealth transfer of all time, as some $1 trillion passes from boomers to their millennial kids. How an inheritance-based economy will transform the country.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
October 2024
My Child-Free Choice
Maclean's

My Child-Free Choice

For a long time, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to become a parent. The climate crisis clinched my decision.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 2024