NESKANTAGA — The school-aged children of Neskantaga are a long way from their place of learning, but classes are about to commence for them.
The Treaty 9 nation’s chief and council have made arrangements for JK-8 classes to start on Monday, Sept. 14, at the Toronto hotel they are staying at as evacuees.
The community, 430 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, evacuated in early August after sewage backup contaminated its nursing station.
Instruction at the hotel will address a need for about 90 Neskantaga children, Chief Gary Quisess told Newswatch.
“They’re not happy right now, because they know the school year has started and they want to attend classes,” he said in a phone interview.
Creating a means for those youngsters to resume their schooling is “something that we have to do,” he said.
Classes in a hotel won’t be the same as being in the familiar Neskantaga Education Centre, he admitted, but at least it’s school.
Matawa First Nations, Indigenous Services Canada and the provincial education ministry are helping make it happen, he said.
Quisess said he has sent a letter to Indigenous Services requesting supply of desks, chairs and other necessities for the temporary school.
The kids will receive instruction from Neskantaga school teachers, he said.
Nearly 260 Neskantaga residents left the reserve in early August after a sewage backup in its nursing station, the Rachael Bessie Sakanee Memorial Health Centre.
The August evacuation was the second one of the summer for Neskantaga, which also evacuated in July as heavy smoke from wildfires caused health concerns.
Neskantaga also flew many community members to Thunder Bay for several weeks in 2025 after a strong fuel smell at the nursing station.
For the latest evacuation, community members moved into a hotel in Toronto. This week, they moved to a different hotel that they will occupy exclusively, Quisess said.
He said he expects they have at least “another month or two” in Toronto ahead of them as “remediation and renovation of the clinic is going to take time.”
When they do return, he said, the band administration building will be the temporary site for the nursing station.
The situation has been hard on Neskantaga First Nation members, he said.
“There’s lots of frustration happening right now. It’s not a pleasant feeling.”
Community members feel like refugees, he said.
