ANNUAL TREK OF KASHECHEWAN FIRST NATION

  To paraphrase the immortal words of my late mother, who always said she was quoting Ogden Nash but in fact wasn’t (she had a gift for malapropism that extended to mal-attribution), “Spring is here, the grass is riz; I wonder where the people of Kashechewan is?”

Why they, of course, are on the move again, as indeed they are most springs, when the Albany River in northern Ontario floods.

It is beyond bearing that this is an annual trek, that everyone in this First Nation — about 2,500 beleaguered people — is flown out of the remote community on the south side of the river and moved to motels and hotels in towns such as Kapuskasing, at a reported cost to the public of between $15 and $20 million every time.