Construction to begin on high-speed internet network for northern First Nations

Supplied image of elders using the internet in St. Theresa Point, an Island Lake-area First Nation. A Clear Sky Connections spokesperson said those communities will eventually be connected to the network via the Norway House gateway.

People in three northern First Nation communities are expected to have access to high speed internet via a new fiber-optic network by the end of this year, Clear Sky Connections announced this week.

On Thursday the organization, which is owned collectively by 63 First Nations in Manitoba, said construction will begin this summer to connect the first three communities: Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (Nelson House), Norway House Cree Nation, and Cross Lake, which will serve as gateways to connect more “large clusters” of First Nations communities in the future.

“There’s a lot of excitement within the communities,” said Fisher River Cree Nation Chief David Crate, who is vice-chairperson of Clear Sky Connections.

“This has been like a ten-year initiative that came to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and basically it’s been the development of a plan to eventually have fiber-optic available to all the First Nations in Manitoba,” said Crate.

He said poor internet service can impact education, health care, and much more.

“In a lot of the communities it’s hit and miss,” Crate said, adding that often service is delivered through microwave broadband and that bandwidth is in short supply.

“Health services, I think, is one of the biggest areas there’s been complaints for a number of years, with telemedicine, telehealth,” he said. “If you have clients that require that service, sometimes they have to reboot the system because of poor connectivity to that health unit. It really depends on the strength of the signal going into the communities.”

He said quality telehealth could help reduce healthcare costs, because it has the potential to cut down on travel for medical care.

Crate said the network will be built in a variety of ways, depending on location.

“I’ll give you an example – if it’s in a muskeg bog area, the best install is to lay what they call armoured cable on the surface for the run of the fiber, however long that’s going to be.”

Crate said in other locations fiber will be trenched, and, “We’re also looking at using some of the Manitoba Hydro telecom existing fiber to piggyback off their fiber.”

The first three communities were chosen because of their locations.

“If you were to look at a map of the northern region on Manitoba, you’ll see the communities, basically they’re the closest to the fiber link at this time, they’ll be connected to fiber and from that point out the fiber will then be pushed out to all the northern communities, including the remote communities,” Crate said.