In late March, just after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, a couple from Quebec, fearing the end was nigh, sold everything they owned and flew to the remote Indigenous community of Old Crow in the Yukon territory. When the couple arrived in the fly-in-only village of about 250 people, they sought temporary accommodations and offered to work. But they were astounded to discover the community didn’t have sufficient housing or jobs available for its own residents, let alone pandemic refugees from Quebec.
The peculiar story was quickly forgotten as coronavirus cases spiked, but it speaks to the uneasy coexistence of two Canadas: one Indigenous, one not. The non-Indigenous Quebecers were so ill-prepared for life in the Arctic, they were an immediate imposition, the village’s chief said. The thoughtless couple put the entire community at risk of infection, since, like many Indigenous communities, Old Crow has no doctor or resources to handle a deadly outbreak.
