Kids still waiting for school to reopen months after wildfire forced Pukatawagan residents to flee

Pukatawagan children laugh while they play a game outside.

"I've just been doing stuff like going outside and that. I've been playing my video games as well," said Nathaniel Sinclair, 13.

Nearly three months after a wildfire forced Pukatawagan residents to evacuate, the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation is still relying on generators for power and its school is closed.

"They need to be around other children. They learn from the teachers and the children," said frustrated Pukatawagan resident Flora Dumas, who has 28 grandchildren.

Dumas is sending one of her grandchildren every week to stay with family in The Pas — an eight-hour train ride — so he can go to school.

"He chooses [Pukatawagan] as his home and it breaks his heart. He doesn't want to leave his grandparents to go to The Pas to go to school, but we have no choice."

Remote learning in the isolated community 710 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg is a challenge and not every home has access to the internet.

Dumas said kids are being given homework packages.

There's little for them to do during the day, she said.

WATCH | Kids still aren't back in school after evacuation:

"They're kind of just left to hang out. That's why so many things get broken into, so much damage happens to the new buildings," she said.

A wildfire forced the remote northwestern community of about 2,500 residents to evacuate in July and damaged the power line that feeds it.

The community's school was under renovation when the fire hit, said Doris Castel, Pukatawagan's education director.

The renovated Sakastew School was supposed to open in September, but construction workers couldn't use their machinery because they sucked up more power than the generators could handle.