The Village of Fort Simpson put out a call on April 8 for community seamstresses to make masks for residents and about a week later the municipality, as well as the Liidlii Kue First Nation and Metis offices, began supplying them to residents.
Many in the public had initially grown accustomed to wearing masks in crowded spaces like the grocery store, but over the last 10 days or so, that has sort of slowed down, Mayor Sean Whelly said.
"While I did see some starting to wear it, is hasn't picked up that much more," he said. "So I think people are kind of feeling safer now and don't see the quite heightened awareness of space and distance that you saw before.
"We had been distributing them and quite a few in the community picked them up, but not that many are wearing it and many just wanted to have one in case they needed it."
Sewing late into the night
photo courtesy of Brenda Moreau.
Brenda Moreau was among those made the masks and she said demand has been very high.
She told NNSL Media that since the call-out more than three weeks ago, she, her mother Louisa Moreau and Kathy Tsetso responded and collectively made close to 450 masks.
With a full-time job as a GNWT employee, she feels there has been a lot of pressure to get the masks done and she said more of the responsibility should be on the shoulders of the Department of Health and Social Services.
"I still work for the government, so I'm sitting at my desk all day doing work," she said. "At lunch and when 5 p.m. hits, I sew right away late into the night. I also have kids home from college and university."
Whelly said running a village the size of Fort Simpson and protecting public health can be difficult as the village lacks vital equipment for health care.
"We know we don't have ventilators here and it wouldn't take much to swamp the system here," he said. "We just want to try to protect ourselves as best we can. The social distancing thing I know is a little bit hard for people here because everyone's got a lot of relations. Big families want to see each other, but that is something that is very subdued now."
Whelly said although initially during the pandemic there were people still going out in public more frequently, people are now mostly sticking to their houses.
Tourism worries
Although residents are taking greater precautions during the pandemic, Whelly said he's concerned what happens afterwards. In some ways, because the village has a lot of government workers, paycheques continue to come in for people and that makes a difference in being able to pay for municipal services.
But the clock is ticking because he worries what might happen to the summer tourism industry if the pandemic continues.
The main hotel in the village -- the Nahanni Inn -- remains closed, meaning there's no activity in the accommodations, restaurant or bar. There is no date planned for when it will reopen.
"The main concern here right now I would say for is for tourism," Whelly said. "That's the only industry that really operates independent from government."
The village also benefits from government meetings with people coming and going, but those have been replaced by teleconferences.
"So we are wondering when government will loosen up a bit too. But out-of-province tourism, I think, is the most on of the mind of some businesses for sure here. That's gonna be really tough go.
"Hotels, restaurants, or charter companies, people selling fuel, convenience stores, these are the ones that are going to be affected by continuing to see the restrictions in place."
Kirby Groat, who also sits on council and is former president of the Fort Simpson Chamber of Commerce, runs Deh Cho Suites bed and breakfast. He said there is currently no occupancy.
"There's not much we can do," he said. "Complaining about it isn't going to make much difference. A lot of people right now I would say are feeling their way through until we find out what is going on."
Groat said there's still a wide belief that many workers in Fort Simpson are government employees and will be less impacted when the pandemic is over.
"All the private business are the ones that are hurting and they're hurting bad. It's bad. There is not way to sugar coat it," he said.
