6 months after wildfire evacuation, some Nisichawayasihk seniors still waiting in Winnipeg to go home

sise months after existence displaced to a long-term give care readiness hundreds of kilometres aside from his family, Jimmy Spence is holding out hope his days as an evacuee are numbered.

The 85-year-old is one of 21 residents who have been in a long-term care facility in Winnipeg since wildfires forced them from their personal care home in Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation in July 2025.

"We just have to be patient — when the time comes for us to go home, we will go home. I am just looking forward to that," Spence said.

"My kids, they are all grown up, but you know, they are still my kids, and I miss them."

The care home residents, some of whom have dementia, Alzheimer's and other cognitive impairments, were among hundreds of vulnerable residents evacuated from the community, about 660 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, in early July, after it was blanketed by heavy smoke from wildfires.

More residents were evacuated in August, but most were able to return later that month.

The First Nation's leadership hoped the care home residents would only have to stay in Winnipeg for a few weeks, until the air quality improved.

But the building now needs significant repairs before they can go back.

It's now expected those repairs will be completed within the next six weeks, and that residents will be able to return before the end of February, said Jessie Horodecki, the Nisichawayasihk care home's executive director.

"I didn't think it would be more than a month that we would be away. It's kind of crazy," she said. 

"We evacuated in the summer in our shorts and T-shirts, and now we're going to be going home in the winter."

The care home building had been decaying after 24 years in use, Nisichawayasihk Chief Angela Levasseur said, but rolling power outages during the wildfires caused further problems. 

The door-locking, patient call bell and security camera systems malfunctioned — a serious issue that meant the care home couldn't ensure residents wouldn't wander or put themselves at risk, Levasseur said. 

But most of the repairs have focused on fixing the facility's floor, which was damaged after a walk-in cooler shut down during power outages. Items in the cooler thawed and leaked.

Levasseur said a provincial assessment determined the facility's floor was unsafe, and without a cooler it would be risky to handle food. 

"These are not optional repairs," she said. 

"We really badly want our residents to come home, but we were not going to bring them home to a facility that is not safe and would jeopardize their health." 

Horodecki said it's fortunate the seniors have been close to one another during their months-long evacuation.

"If you can't be at home, at least you're together with your family," she said.

The transition from a small, tight-knit community to a city has been overwhelming for some seniors, said Horodecki.

But she said the Winnipeg long-term care facility where the seniors are staying has tried to make their temporary home feel as familiar as possible, with staff learning common phrases in Cree and keeping the same routines the residents had in Nisichawayasihk.

The evacuation has also come with some advantages, including easier access to health services like dentists and optometrists, and smaller comforts like different take-out food options for bingo afternoons or karaoke nights, Horodecki said.

"As great as it is to have all these services right at our fingertips, it is still not the same. Everybody just wants to be home," she said. "It sucks telling them that we don't know when."

Ann Hall, one of the 21 evacuees staying in Winnipeg, has been yearning to see her daughter again. The last time they saw each other was in the fall.

Family visits have been getting shorter and further between, Horodecki said. Winnipeg is a roughly nine-hour drive from Nisichawayasihk, and some relatives haven't been able to make the trip.

"I like living here — the people treat you good," Hall said. "But it's not like home, and I'd like to go home."

The personal care home gets funding from the province and Indigenous Services Canada to operate a fixed number of beds, but capital funding for repairs to the building is mostly coming from the First Nation, Chief Levasseur said.

Nisichawayasihk has requested funding from the provincial and federal governments, but Levasseur said each level has shifted the responsibility to the other. 

"It's kind of a contentious back and forth," Levasseur said. "Meanwhile, our residents are waiting — they're wanting to come home."

Indigenous Services Canada said it is providing financial support for the repairs to the personal care home and for the evacuees' stay in Winnipeg. 

Planning is also already underway to ensure everything is ready when it's time for residents to return, including arranging their flights home, which will require medevacs for the most vulnerable residents.

"We're just in a hurry-up-and-wait situation right now," Horodecki said.

But "once the home is safe and enough work has been completed, we're going to be on the first flight back north."

Last wildfire evacuees from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation still waiting to return home

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