A northwestern Manitoba First Nation says it’s been forced to arrange private financing and buy an $8-million emergency backup generator system after being ignored by the federal and provincial governments for six months.

The community, also known as Pukatawagan, was one of many to be evacuated in May 2025 after a provincewide state of emergency was issued due to wildfires.

“We’ve come to this point here, after all our efforts we put together to find a solution for what we went through. We went through a terrible time,” Mathias Colomb Cree Nation Chief Gordie Bear said at a news conference in Winnipeg on Friday.

Residents of the First Nation, about 700 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, were evacuated to Brandon and The Pas, and as far as Niagara Falls, Ont., during the wildfires.

Although the mandatory evacuation was lifted in August, some 2,200 residents couldn’t return home due to a lack of power.

Fires damaged transmission lines throughout the province, but Mathias Colomb had one of the longest evacuations that summer, lasting nearly four months.

The return of residents could have been fast-tracked if Manitoba Hydro had provided temporary generators, as had been done during the 2022 wildfire season, Bear said.

“We tried negotiating with the governments. We tried pleading with them,” he said at Friday’s news conference, held at the offices of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak.

“On our last efforts, we set forth that we were going to acquire these [generators] with or without the help of government. We have to look after ourselves.”

During a meeting with the Manitoba Public Utilities Board in December, Bear said the message was “never again will our basic energy security and public safety be at the mercy of Manitoba Hydro’s lack of response.”

The system purchased by Mathias Colomb includes four semi-trailer-sized generators to provide emergency power during future wildfires or other emergency evacuations, a Friday news release states.

Bear said in the news release that Hydro, along with the provincial and federal governments, took “no responsibility for ensuring basic energy security,” and federal and provincial ministers “abandoned us” during the summer evacuation.

Mathias Colomb found the solution and took the steps itself, Bear said.

The First Nation is now calling on the province to order Manitoba Hydro to connect its emergency backup generators to the distribution system in Pukatawagan immediately so the generators will be ready “for the next power outage, which is a matter of when, not if,” the news release says.

CBC News has reached out to Manitoba Finance Minister Adrien Sala, who is responsible for Manitoba Hydro, and Indigenous Services Canada for comment.

Evacuation took emotional toll

The extended evacuation was difficult for elders with mobility and health issues, and for youth who were exposed to things they weren’t accustomed to in their remote community, said Bear.

“We took all that home with us. We’re going through hard times of what we encountered,” he said.

“Our life has changed, and so now we have to find medicine for our young ones, our children, who [are] in trouble with the street level that we encountered.

“We’re not leaving Puk again, nor [does] anybody want to leave their homelands again through evacuation of wildfires, power outages, any of that. We don’t.”

Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee said 11 evacuees from Mathias Colomb died before community members could return.

“A lot of people don’t know the emotional toll that it takes on people.… You have to deal with the aftermath of being displaced for such a long period of time,” he said.

“This should not happen again. They have a solution. But the problem is the federal and provincial governments cannot sit down together to agree to a way that they can be [supported].”

Settee said MKO, an advocacy organization that represents northern Manitoba First Nations, stands with Mathias Colomb to “wake up” the governments, and urge them to pay for and hook up the generator system.

Grand Chief Kyra Wilson of the Assembly Manitoba Chiefs echoed those comments.

“We’re here to talk about a solution that was provided to the different levels of government when it comes to a community that was needing support during a time of crisis, and they did not receive a response,” she said at Friday’s news conference.

“I’m so happy to hear that the leadership did what they needed to do to keep their community safe,” said Wilson.

“But the federal and provincial government have an obligation and a duty to respond to the community. And we’re not going to stop talking and speaking and bringing forward this issue until [they] respond appropriately.”