Its only school ripped away by arson, Eabametoong First Nation focuses on healing and keeping kids in class
CBC
The John C. Yesno Education Centre was more than just a school for students and teachers in Eabametoong First Nation.
It was a place where children in the northwestern Ontario community made friends and played sports, and community members gathered for everything from feasts to flea markets.
"When I first started school, I experienced all kinds of abuse," said Mary Okeese, who has taught kindergarten there for over 30 years. "When I started working here, that was my healing journey from all the stuff that I experienced.
"I thought of the school as my friend."
Nearly 300 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 9 have been displaced after the school was razed in a fire that police say was purposely set on Jan. 25. They later arrested and charged four teenagers.
Eabametoong is a remote fly-in community of 1,600 people about 360 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. As they continue to deal with the loss of the education centre, leaders of the First Nation are looking to get a temporary school built by September. However, other needs in the community may get in the way of them reaching that goal.
They include:
Eabametoong has also been under a long-term boil-water advisory since August 2002.
"Our infrastructure is collapsing," said Chief Solomon Atlookan.
Ontario Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford has pledged the province's full support in helping the community in its rebuilding efforts. As well, federal Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu has said the government is committed to improving fire services in First Nations.
Reem Sheet, Hajdu's press secretary, said the minister will meet with Atlookan on Friday "to work on a short-term plan so that students have what they need to continue studying and on a long-term plan to build a new school." The location of that meeting is to be determined.
The federal government has spent $3 million since the fire to help provide educational resources, additional teachers, school supplies and mental health resources in the community, Sheet said.
But Atlookan is calling for provincial and federal leaders to visit Eabametoong in person to fully understand the urgency.
Plans were already underway, before the fire, to build a new school in Eabametoong, but it wasn't anticipated to happen soon. It took nearly a decade for Pikangikum First Nation's school to be rebuilt after it burned down in 2007 and nearly eight years to replace Wapekeka First Nation's school after a fire in 2015.
This story was first published on Oct. 20, 2025.
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