'It's not case closed': environmental group still searching for blastomycosis in northern Ontario First Nation

A coroner’s jury has heard testimony that members of Constance Lake First Nation continue to live under the threat of a fungal lung disease, four years after an outbreak of blastomycosis claimed five lives in the community near Hearst.

But it also heard about the dogged efforts of one environmental group to continue to track and learn about the conditions that create the spores that cause the disease.  

An inquest is looking at the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Luke Moore, Lorraine Shaganash, Lizzie Sutherland, Mark Ferris and Douglas Taylor due to blastomycosis.

“It’s not a case closed kind of thing,” said Sarah Cockerton, the manager of Four River Environmental Services Group.

“The community is still living with this. It is still there.”

She said people continue to live in fear and that's why the search for potential sources of blastomycosis must continue.

“If you’ve got something living in your backyard and you don’t know what it is, you’ve got this feeling all the time, it’s creeping up behind you,” said Cockerton.

Four Rivers provides environmental services under the direction of nine Matawa member First Nations, combining traditional knowledge and modern science.

Blastomycosis is caused by inhaling spores created naturally when organic matter rots in moist conditions, such as on the shores of lakes or in wood piles, and the spores are eleased when the soil is disturbed.

As the organization scrambled to respond to a situation they knew little about and to support the community during the 2021 outbreak, Cockerton said they were told by experts that the source was likely gone and they would never find it.

She said scientific literature told them that the spores were ephemeral, that the same spot could be tested and a positive sample might be found one week in six, like a needle in a haystack.

“There is this big underlying thing that it’s never going to be found, it can’t be found and it’s a waste of time trying to find it,” she said.

Despite that, Cockerton said they conducted extensive sampling of sites, including old woodpiles, the shores of lakes and around the community's sewage lagoon in Constance Lake throughout the fall and winter of 2021.

The samples, sent to a company called Sporometrics with a lab in Toronto, came back negative, just like the samples Sporometrics gathered itself in December 2021.