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From CNEWS ...

Grieving community seeks closure
By THANE BURNETT - The Toronto Sun    

SUMMER BEAVER, Ont. -- Johnny Yellowhead walks deep into the north woods, to once again find one of Canada's most isolated graveyards.

What he wants -- what many in his nearby First Nation village of Summer Beaver (Nibinamik), Ont., still pray for these four years later -- is a road to their dead.

On Sept. 11, 2003, Johnny's older brother, Lawrence, was one of seven villagers who died in the fiery, night crash of a commuter plane, which also claimed the young pilot. The villagers went down so close to coming home, that the automatic landing lights at Summer Beaver's gravel strip blinked on -- but then nothing. It was, as the infamous day and particular month might suggest, a devastating blow to the entire northern Ontario community, only accessible by air or winter ice road.

Very few in the village of just over 350 claim to have heard a distant crash in the trees and explosion around 11 p.m. But almost everyone can still recall the sound of crying in the northern night, as news later travelled from one small house to the next.

Aldin Beaver, now 21, was told of the deaths by a police officer. But while the young man was gently informed no one survived, he didn't realize until some time later the victims included his father, Richard. As I talk with Beaver, his answers are largely one or two words, but his pocket holds very neatly written pages of his thoughts.

"It felt like the end of the world," he printed on one line.

On another: "People say the healing process begins at the crash site."

The dead not only represented many local leaders -- Lawrence was a deputy chief and three others were band officials -- but also, aged 7 to 64 years old, they spanned four generations.

Nibinamik First Nation Chief Roger Oskineegish estimates 90% of the population lost kin that night.

But what has haunted this place -- people like Johnny -- is that their loved ones died so close. But, for many here, still out of reach.

The site is so isolated Canadian Forces rescue soldiers from Winnipeg had to parachute from a C-130 Hercules into the trees, which today, as we walk toward what locals refer to as their "Ground Zero," stand straight and naked like sharp porcupine quills.

The rescuers found the Wasaya Airways plane -- even in the cold rain of that night -- still bright with flames. It would burn for hours and still smoke two days later. It cracked the rock of the ancient Canadian Shield and cremated flesh and bone. Of the eight people in the plane, only 20 kilograms of human remains were ever brought out -- most of it identified as the 25-year-old pilot and returned to his family in Cornwall, Ont.

The crash -- if you call up the stories in the national press -- made relatively scant headlines. Considering what a toll it was here -- 2% of the village gone -- many Canadians probably can't recall the crash. But it did draw more than 1,200 mourners and supporters, who quickly flew into this place of 97 homes circled by as much water as land.

Places like this are somewhat used to close calls with planes -- a price of being up so high and out so far. One of the victims, Leonard Sugarhead, had apparently walked away from a previous crash. It became the stuff of family legend, says his nephew Raymond. But, when they buried Leonard and the others, their caskets were largely empty. Almost all of the mortal remains never left the earth they fell to.

And neither, say many here, have their spirits.

The cause of the accident has never been discovered. But the effects are apparent.

Because of the morbid and logistical details of this plane crash, the people of Summer Beaver say they have never really been able to deal with their greatest tragedy.

Consider the sad ratio. Mathematically, for this tiny community, it was equal in loss to 50 jumbo jets crashing in Calgary. On your own street, imagine nine out of every 10 houses being told a relative is dead.

Still thought to be suffering from a kind of post-traumatic stress -- locals say alcohol and drug abuse, as well as domestic violence, has increased dramatically since their 9/11, but no long-term assessment can be found -- they lack a way to get their old and young to the site.

STILL UNFINISHED

Community leaders say a road to the dead would take the living a long way. They were, they claim, promised about 6.5 km of usable gravel road to the site by federal officials. But the morbid byway hasn't yet been finished.

"We want that to be our sacred place -- a place of healing," says Chief Oskineegish. "People are still hurting here ... we buried empty boxes.

"A road there would help us all."

But the federal government says they've already provided more than $1.1 million in crisis-response funding to the community, following the accident. And that it was meant -- as well as for such things as grief counselling -- to go toward the road they want.

"We are not aware of any (federal) commitment made for a road," says Linda Britt, spokesman for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.

Health Canada says they have, over these four years, provided an additional $420,000 in crisis funds, with a spokesman adding: "We are committed to the people of Summer Beaver."

The chief says they received about $500,000 from Indian Affairs and that money was never part of a road-fund -- rather it was split among many parties to handle the aftermath of the crisis."

The community sees the road as a separate promise that continues to go nowhere fast. They've sent the government a proposal -- that the dead-end road could also be used as a recreational avenue.

And the people of the village have largely graded about 3.5 km of the needed 6.5 km, at a cost of $75,000 from their own funds -- though much of their machinery has broken down. Even the section they've done needs upgrades. At one point, we pass by an abandoned pickup truck which shattered its transmission in the deep mud last month.

The cost -- in a faraway village where two litres of milk is marked $7.20, gas is $1.50 a litre and a bag of 10 apples is over $11 -- is estimated by Oskineegish at $20,000 a kilometre. Now add a bridge to span a river, which, on this day, is too wild and fast to put a boat across.

All this land, including Summer Beaver, almost 500 km north of Thunder Bay, Ont., sits on Crown land. The people pay for their homes, which are often plagued by dangerous mould and unhealthy water. But it's the plane crash which consumes this place.

"Nothing felt the same anymore and nothing pretty much mattered after that," Cynthia Yellowhead, 22, who lost her dad, wrote in a letter to me.

She, and others, hope for better treatment for the village's ails. A high school they can attend. A place for youth to gather. Homes not infested by mould. But no matter what else they need -- and there are many needs -- many see a peace at the end of their road.

THE LONG JOURNEY

We have motored over a neighbouring lake by boat and are now slogging through pockets of sucking moss, over walls of tree falls and across a log path, cheating the 60-metre-wide swamp. The wood is as slick as ice to the bottoms of our high rubber boots.

Sweat reflects the bright afternoon sun from Johnny's forehead -- in the months to come, even in -45 C days, the sky will usually be as blue and clear as it is today. The hike in -- after the boat run -- will take us an hour and 15 minutes. And we are going as quickly as we can. Johnny has, on other days, found the old and unfit laying along the rough path, unable to continue. He, and many other men who have made this trek, often carry their young on their backs.

Georgina Neshinapasie lost her 28-year-old grandson, Rudy, as well as her younger brother, Richard Beaver, that night. She's 74 years old, an Anglican minister. She walks with slow and measured steps, yet somehow made it all the way to the site last summer.

"It was difficult," she confesses.

She'd like to go back often. But it's so difficult.

A road to the dead would help the entire community, she's sure.

Because the bodies were largely not recovered, some of the people here suspect a conspiracy. That they didn't really die.

Others constantly imagine the victims are simply waiting to be found.

"I would stare across the lake, and wait for screams of help -- but they never came," Johnny, a musician whose brother was returning after securing financing for their Northern Eagles album, says as we walk.

THE CRASH SITE

Up another grade, in what must be one of the the quietest places on Earth -- as a city dweller, I suddenly realize I'm used to a constant background din of distant motors and motion -- a square of stark white-washed picket logs rise into view. We have arrived.

Inside, a large white cross -- the community has a strong Christian backbone -- looms over a polished tombstone which was dropped by helicopter.

Bouquets of colourful plastic flowers erupt out of the earthy greys and brown of the ground. On a large cracked rock, which the plane split in two, pieces of its thick, shattered green-tinted windows are piled like stones on a Jewish grave site.

Outside the square, the frame of a temporary building casts shadows, as torn bits of old blue tarps move softly against its ribs.

Johnny says he's always anxious coming in here. Guiding me toward this spot, he nervously talks non-stop as he walks ahead -- words sometimes lost with the crunch of branches or sucking mud. His words only stop when the site comes into view.

And then, after awhile: "It's only after being here I feel better."

We linger for only a moment -- I take some pictures and jot down some notes -- then head back south, following a line of moose tracks toward Summer Beaver.

Johnny says the reality of the site calms him -- puts things in their place. But the longer he stays away, then the old thoughts will creep back in.

"That I'll begin to look for my brother in the trees -- look for a sign of them all," he says as we head back through the thicket.

A road to the dead, he says, will help put a lot of things to rest here.

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THE SUMMER BEAVER VICTIMS

• Richard Beaver, 47
• Rudy Neshinapasie, 28
• Leonard Sugarhead, 46
• Mike Wabasse, 64
• Nathan Wabasse, 7
• Violet Wapoose, 53 (grandmother to Nathan)
• Lawrence Yellowhead, 37
• Jonathan Hulls, 25 (pilot)

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SUMMER BEAVER

• Languages: English and Ojibway
• Population: 382
• 98% of the community has electricity. 90% have flush toilets.
• There are no police officers now in the community.
• One school for 100 children up to Grade 10. For high school, they must leave the community.
• Mould is a major problem in homes.
• The community has an Anglican church.
• Two-litres of milk cost $7.20, ten apples more than $11.
• Gas: $1.50 a litre.

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THE COMMUNITY ALSO NEEDS:

• 46 new homes due to overcrowding: $120,000-$145,000 each.
• Community centre: $1.4 million.
• Cleaning of 67 homes of dangerous mould: $40,000-$65,000 each.

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ROAD CONSTRUCTION

• $20,000 a kilometre -- In comparison, it will cost $250 million to extend ighway 404 in Ontario 13 km, or $19,230,769 a kilometre.
• An estimated 6.5 km of road is needed to reach the crash site. The village has cleared about 3.5 km at a cost of $75,000 of their own funds.