"We Belong Back Home, in the Bush"

The images went around the world. At least around the Canadian world. People in small boats fleeing a wall of fire and heat that reached right to the water's edge. The community fled across the water.

Everything else was left behind.

The residents of Collins First Nation lived in a remote community with no road access, more than 200 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. Earlier this week, they had to get themselves to safety — the only way out was over water.

Then the survivors of the Collins First Nation community began to wonder. Canadian authorities have so far sent no help and offered no support. The problem has an almost absurd, farcical quality. The Indian Act recognises individual residents as First Nation People. But the community itself — Namaygoosisagagun as a collective — it does not. A distinction that looks like a footnote on paper. And in real life is a catastrophe. And so it fell through the cracks of the funding system.

Linda Debassige, Grand Council Chief of the Anishinabek Nation, told The Canadian Press that community members had barely escaped the disaster. They received no warning about the fire, and neither the province nor the federal government offered any support during the evacuation.

Thirty-nine First Nations carry the name Namaygoosisagagun — and are acting where province and federal government hesitate. The council is supporting their members with hotel stays and basic necessities like food and clothing.

“We don’t know if we’ll be reimbursed, but that doesn’t matter,” said Linda Debassige.

“Our concern is to support this community after the federal and provincial governments have failed them.”

Several other First Nations in the province, including the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, are also collecting donations for the community at their powwow this weekend.

Helen Paavola, Chief of Collins First Nation, told The Canadian Press that she had heard from Gull-Masty for the first time since the fire broke out, on Friday afternoon. Mandy Gull-Masty has been Minister of Indigenous Services since May 2025 — the first Indigenous person to hold that office.

“I’m not defending anyone anymore, because I am angry, and with every day that passes I get angrier, because I am suffering, my people are suffering, and we have nowhere to go,” she said.

If Namaygoosisagagun does not receive emergency and reconstruction assistance — the kind that recognised First Nations are entitled to — a community like this one may never be rebuilt. Its members have spent decades building up the Collins community.

“We don’t belong here. We belong back home, in the bush.”

^{Photo: Wade Wastaken}