Radio listeners across Canada got to know Pukatawagan over the weekend.
On Saturday, Feb. 21, CBC’s Definitely Not the Opera (DNTO) aired an episode recorded on the northern Manitoba reserve.
Sook-Yin Lee, host of the show, and a crew of producers and a videographer visited Pukatawagan during the week of Feb. 9.
Lee found the trip inspiring.
“To me it’s a place of deep, quiet intensity,” she said. “Even landing, everything looked black and white. The tree line looked black, the snow looked white. The world became quite visibly different. Many of the people are facing incredible challenges with living somewhere so remote.”
While on the reserve the CBC crew knocked on doors and went to the school and youth centre – indeed anywhere a resident would tell their story to them.
Lee said she’ll never forget meeting a local man named Joseph Caribou.
Caribou, paralyzed from the waist down from a hunting accident, lives in a small shack with his wife and two children waiting for a home to be built for them.
“There is no ability to have a shower,” Lee said. “It is very challenging for a man not able to walk. He’s hoping and praying to have supplies to come in, waiting for his home to be built. This is Canada, and it’s a stark reality to see the reality people can face.”
The hope of the themed DNTO episode was for people to open their minds, Lee said.
“I hope people can put their heads together and figure out ways to inject resources into their economy,” she said. “We need to be able to see the beauty, see the people and figure out how to help to sustain that community, because it’s a treasure.”
