Inside the Ring of Fire: A tale of two First Nations and a road that could change everything

Two closely linked First Nations are taking different paths as Ontario pushes ahead with Ring of Fire roads and mining in a region reshaped by climate change and geopolitics.

 THE WARNING

The ancestors knew.

First Nation elders understood the south would march north eventually. They knew it would come in waves, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Those ancestors told their kids, who told theirs, and so on until today.

The south has already carved many changes. Decades ago, Webequie First Nation and Neskantaga First Nation were one community. The southern import of Christianity split them apart. Neskantaga is largely Catholic. The Anglicans left for Webequie. The family ties remain, though so many were torn away by the residential school system. They are cousins.

Today, leaders in both communities say their people live in conditions the rest of Canada would find unacceptable. Both communities are off-grid, stuck relying on diesel for power and reliant on an ever-shrinking winter road season that isolates them further.

Now the south is hastening its march again. Canada’s north is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the world. A global trade war has political eyes in Toronto, Ottawa and even Washington, D.C., on critical minerals buried underground.

Again Webequie and Neskantaga find themselves charting diverging courses.

One seeks to harness the onslaught, embrace resource extraction and lift itself out of poverty. The other would first prioritize basic improvements, like getting clean drinking water out of the taps for the first time in 30 years. Some plan an active blockade. To them, it is a deeply personal fight.