TREADING WATER: PLIGHT OF THE MANITOBA FIRST NATION FLOOD EVACUEES 

For three-and-a-half years and still counting, residents from Manitoba’s Lake St. Martin region have been displaced from their homes. It’s an ongoing saga with, sadly, no end in sight. And while mainstream news outlets resurrect the story every time another ‘development’ is announced, it quickly fades away into the background…

Now, the real-life story is revealed in Treading Water: Plight of the Manitoba First Nation Flood Evacuees, told by brother/sister filmmaking team Janelle and Jérémie Wookey. The documentary premiered on CBC Television and APTN earlier this summer, and is set to screen at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival this month.

ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY

In April 2011, Manitoba experienced a 1-in-350-year flood. In an effort to save the City of Winnipeg and other urban centres, unprecedented water levels were intentionally diverted through the Fairford Dam to Lake St. Martin. As a result, First Nation communities in the area were swamped, and 2100 people forced from their homes for what they thought would be just a few weeks. But weeks turned into months. And months stretched into years…

Jump ahead to current day. Evacuees remain stranded, drowning in despair, and stuck at a standstill, scattered in hotels and temporary housing throughout Winnipeg and Manitoba. They have no home to go back to, and the displacement has triggered family breakdown, compromised education, stress and depression, and ultimately, increased substance abuse and suicide rates. Through it all, they’ve become pawns in a political firestorm and blame-game between the First Nation bands, the Manitoba Association of Native Firefighters, hotel owners, and the federal and provincial governments.

Treading Water is a deeply intimate and moving look at the unexpected, untold story of the real-life citizens, community and controversy behind the headlines. It is written and directed by brother-sister filmmaking team Janelle and Jérémie Wookey, who felt compelled to tell the story.

“Having the opportunity to give evacuees a voice and a chance to share their side of the story, which we felt was often forgotten, was very important to us,” says Janelle Wookey. “Because their story wasn't being told, they often ended up being blamed by the public for the whole mess, which was deeply unfair. So that also motivated us, and made their story even more important to tell."

The people in the documentary are as frustrated as they are devastated, as they struggle with feelings of isolation, loneliness and dejection. Here are some of their words, taken right from Treading Water:

“We’ve lost more than just houses. Our family structures are being broken down, our community structure is broken down. When you take somebody’s home, you bring devastation to their lives. You take their roots. You take their grounding.”

“They sent a constable here with a piece of paper, telling me I had to go… They cut off water, they cut off septic. We were never given a choice to stay, or a choice to stand and fight. It’s like ‘you gotta go, and you gotta go now.’”

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Franco-Métis brother-sister filmmakers Jérémie Wookey and Janelle Wookey are the director/writer team behind Treading Water. Born and raised on the Canadian prairies, they’ve been creating films together since the ages of seven and nine. Their first documentary, Mémére Métisse, premiered on opening night of the 2008 ImagineNATIVE Film Festival, and aired on CBC, Radio-Canada and APTN. After seven years of combined professional experience working in news and production at CBC/Radio-Canada, they launched Wookey Films Inc. Treading Water is their first official broadcast co-production.