B.3 Sagkeeng Anicinabe First Nation community

B.3 Sagkeeng Anicinabe First Nation community

Sagkeeng Anicinabe First Nation has a reserve in Fort Alexander, Manitoba, just west of Powerview-Pine Falls, a small community (< 10,000 population) in a high-hazard region (Figure 34). The neighbourhood of the Sagkeeng community examined here has between 100 and 600 houses and two access routes, meaning sufficient access routes. It has paved roads, unlike most sample Zillow-listed houses in Powerview-Pine Falls.

Figure 34. Sagkeeng Anicinabe community near Powerview-Pine Falls, MB

The community has no fire hydrants. By contrast, 42% of Zillow-listed homes in nearby PowerviewPine Falls have fire hydrants. However, most of the Fort Alexander houses are within a few hundred feet of Lake Winnipeg, close enough that light fire apparatus could draft from the lake if they have the right equipment.

Electricity comes from above-ground power lines on wooden poles. Power lines appear sometimes to lack 5 metres of clearance to vegetation. In these respects, the Indigenous community resembles nearby neighbourhoods in Powerview-Pine Falls.

The houses along the main route can be viewed from Google Earth Street View, but not close enough to be certain of cladding material. It seems likely that the houses do not have basements, considering how close they are to the lake. However, their first floors appear to be about 15 feet above the level of the lake, so it seems possible that some houses would have basements. Houses are all single storey with small footprints. A sample of 10 arbitrarily selected houses averaged about 925 square feet in plan area, about two-thirds the size of the 1,300 square foot average in nearby Powerview-Pine Falls.

Five of ten sample houses have low exposure level by the simplified method, four had ember-only exposure, and one had moderate exposure. By contrast, most of the sample houses in PowerviewPine Falls have moderate exposure level by the simplified method.