A group of youth in the Canoe Lake Cree Nation is looking to take their community back from the ravages of drugs and alcohol.
The local “Reclaiming our Community” walk was held earlier this week to promote positive, healthy and drug-free lifestyles.
“There’s been people smoking weed and there’s been older people getting into drugs like meth and crack and coke,” 17-year-old Kahley Iron, one of the teens who took part in the walk, said.
She said COVID-19 checkpoints in Canoe Lake are monitoring for alcohol but are not always catching some of the drugs coming into the community.
Allison Iron is one of the adults who helped organize the event.
She said the walk is just the first step.
“Our first step was to do the community walk and now we’re going to be setting up meetings. We’re going to work with KMC, which is the kokums and mushums group. We’re going to work with CNC (Canoe Lake council) to try to bring in different protective measures to change all of that.”
About 80 people took part in the walk.
(PHOTO: Courtesy Allison Iron Facebook page.)