Decades-old water pollution ravaged the health of 2 Ontario First Nations. Elders are still fighting for justice
This is Part 2 of a three-part series called Gigoo-Aakoosi: Fish Is Sick.
Betty Riffel recalls the day she watched her baby brother die.
Though the death happened 70 years ago in the northern Ontario community of Quibell, the haunting memory is still fresh.
He had a prolonged seizure and then just stopped moving, the Wabauskang First Nation elder said during a face-to-face interview, before the pandemic made travel to Ontario’s remote communities impossible.
“It still bothers me,” she said. But the misery didn’t end with the death of one sibling. Her baby brother, Donny, was one of 10 children who died in the community during their first year of life.
As part of this investigation, a small team of journalists and student journalists travelled to Quibell and Wabauskang, a community whose residents lived and worked along the English-Wabigoon river system. The water system was rendered toxic by discharges from a pulp mill in Dryden, Ont. Riffel, now 82, sat down with the team to share her story.
Riffel said her brother was just nine months old when he died in September 1948. The Petiquan family was living in Quibell, a small community that would draw water from the Wabigoon River. Until they suspected something was wrong with the water, it was a good place to live, Riffel said.
“He was sick from birth,” said Riffel. “He had diarrhea all the time.”
The family’s Sioux Lookout doctor blamed Donny’s death on an “incurable disease,” said Riffel.
But to this day, Riffel believes it was the water from the Wabigoon River that poisoned her brother, and she has been trying to bring it to the attention of the Ontario government and media for years.
As part of this investigation, we asked federal and provincial government departments, such as Indigenous Services Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, about the premature deaths in Quibell. We were told they did not have any information. The Office of the Chief Coroner said without specific details that it could not look up how the deaths were classified.
Based on a 1969 report, uncovered by our investigation, the province had concerns about “gross” pollution levels entering the English-Wabigoon river system caused by the Dryden mill, also noting the waste from the pulp and paper mill had been entering the river since it opened in 1913.
The 1969 Water Pollution Survey of the Wabigoon River was written by the Ontario Water Resources Commission — now part of the province’s environment ministry.
This was a history the elders suspected all along.
Changes in the water
For the Anishinaabe people who lived along the English-Wabigoon river system, it was a place to harvest fish, a traditional staple.
When the river system became contaminated, elders such as Riffel remember the changes in the water and the sickness and death that followed.
Since 1996, Riffel has been searching for answers to what caused those deaths.
Based on her research, Riffel said she can count 10 other infants who died of violent seizures between 1947 and 1949.
She remembers babies suffering from diarrhea and persistent crying. They were all dead by a year old.
Riffel isn’t the only one who remembers those days.
Evelyn Pahpasay, 82, said her mother Margaret Fobister lost two infants during the same time young Donny died.
“They died when they were babies,” Pahpasay said in a recent telephone interview about her siblings, Roy and Robert Fobister, who were both under a year old.
The family spent their summers in Quibell, especially the two younger boys and Steve Fobister, who became a revered leader and activist in Asubpeeschoseewagong. Like so many other families, they grew up eating fish from the English-Wabigoon river system.
Not only were her younger brothers sick, but Pahpasay said Steve was also frequently ill as a child. It’s something that would remain a constant ailment throughout his life. He suffered the effects of mercury poisoning and a degenerative neurological disorder and died in 2018. His family and community have pushed for an inquest into his death and have called on the federal and Ontario governments to acknowledge that the former chief’s death was a result of mercury poisoning.
Pahpasay said the water had a foul smell at the time, and as children, they were forbidden to swim in it.
In the past (and still today) the three communities of Quibell, Wabauskang and Asubpeeschoseewagong all had strong ties and family connections along the English-Wabigoon river system.