b'COVID-19Collins. Although, we faced challenges on many different fronts by many different sectors, he adds. It is not as easy as saying we are going to close today and take the risk of being challenged on every aspect of it. Fort William has a population of close to 2,500. They are an urbanized community with the city of Thunder Bay located directly on their territory. They have two hockey arenas and 10 office complexes, and they continue to grow economically each year.Fort William set up an Emergency Response Group to consider their pandemic plan and emergency response plan. The group first met daily, thenprotect the community in the short termclose some of the main roads into their weekly, and are now meeting bi-weekly.and the long term. community as they are owned by the city.The Emergency Response Group consistsFort William started their shut downFor COVID-19 community testing, of Chief Collins, Chief Executive Officerby closing the bingo hall and theirFort William has conducted drive-thru Michael Pelletier Jr. and representativestwo arenas. In early spring the Chieftesting on three separate occasions and from other departments and services.and Council passed a Band Councilplans to have another round every four The Chief and Council were meetingResolution (BCR) and a motion thatto six weeks. They also put in place a almost daily for the first month ofimposed security checkpoints and aneighbourhood watch type of system and the pandemic, keeping up to date onnightly curfew. The BCR restricteda colour-coding method for their houses, how everyone was dealing with things.access to their residential neighbour- where residents can use colour coding to Frontline staff frequently met to ensurehood. Pelletier explains that being soask for help or to let others know they that they were doing everything toclose to Thunder Bay made it difficult towere sick. Fort William also provided food packages to all community homes on four days spread out over two months. One of the challenges that Chief Collins found was with by-law enforce-ment in their community. I know thats Collaboratively my role and my step as Chiefit is to make sure that we have enforceable implementing by-laws and not to be able to challenge them when we decide we need to close our community down for the safety and Canadas plan forwell-being of all of our members, says Chief Collins. the safe, long-termWhile most of the community accepted the conditions that were put in place, some did resist. Just like every management of other community and city dealing with addictions, they [people with addic-tions] are the ones that were more used nuclear fuel challenging to deal with. They want to be able to travel in and out of the city to deal with the issues they have, explains We invite you to learn more. Chief Collins. Please visit our website: www.nwmo.ca The biggest concern that came Find us on @nwmocanada out for Chief Collins was the mental /company/nwmocanada health issues and the fallout from being segregated and confined to a specific place, which they are hoping to deal with going forward. For Pelletier, the biggest concern has been dealing with the communitys addictions pandemic along-side the COVID-19 pandemic. You 24l I ssue1 2020C hIefs ofo ntarIoA dvocAte magazIne'