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The First Nation that has been the source of Winnipeg's water for more than a century is suing the city and federal government, saying it's never been compensated for the harms suffered as a result of the city's water diversion system. When it was build in 1915, Winnipeg's aqueduct left Shoal Lake 40 isolated on a man-made island that was only accessible by ice road in the winter or barge in the summer.
Shoal Lake 40 First Nation is welcoming clean, running water for the first time in nearly 25 years. The First Nation on the Manitoba-Ontario boundary is celebrating today the opening of its new water treatment plant, along with a new school. The federal government says a long-term boil-water advisory for the community, which was issued in 1998 and was one of the longest in Canada, has been lifted. The First Nation was cut off from the mainland more than a century ago during construction of an aqueduct that supplies Winnipeg with its drinking water.
The taps to Winnipeg's drinking water were first turned on in April 1919, but as the city celebrated its engineering feat and raised glasses of that clear liquid, another community's fortunes suddenly turned dark. Construction of a new aqueduct plunged Shoal Lake 40 into a forced isolation that it is only now emerging from, 100 years after Winnipeg's politicians locked their sights on the water that cradles the First Nation at the Manitoba–Ontario border. "The price that our community has paid for one community to benefit from that resource, it's just mind-boggling," said Shoal Lake 40 Chief Erwin Redsky.
