Power comes to remote Ontario First Nations – The Narwhal

Oct. 24, 2024

As far as human-made structures go, a substation is unremarkable. Every city has at least one — a cluster of metal boxes and wires that connect our homes and businesses to the vast power grid. A substation isn’t something most people stop and notice (let alone visit), even if its function is essential to how we get electricity: it takes in high voltages of energy from the transmission line and delivers safer levels to us.

But in Sachigo Lake First Nation — and 23 other Indigenous communities in northern Ontario — a substation, and the grid it connects to, is completely miraculous. It’s why I travelled 1,468 kilometres in September to see it.

To get there, I had to first get to Thunder Bay. Then, I took an almost two-hour flight over the tips of the boreal forest, crossing 644 kilometres to reach the nation near the border of Ontario and Manitoba. Next came a bumpy 15-minute drive on a yellow school bus chartered to bring a group of dignitaries, along with two members of the media including myself, to the community. We drive past sparse woodland and aggregate sites full of sand and crushed stone. The bus stops, letting us out at a wide clearing where we walk up a rough path flanked by trenches full of sand and rocks.

Read More: https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-indigenous-energy-watay-power/