Raspberries 50 cents apiece and other revelations at a far north grocery store
Some on the James Bay Coast rely on 'wild food' because of high grocery costs
Bobby Spence always finds room in his monthly grocery budget — and his stomach — for at least one night of spaghetti and Caesar salad.
But the 41-year-old in Attawapiskat says his monthly social assistance cheque rarely provides him with 30 days worth of meals in an isolated community where grocery bills are inflated by shipping costs.
"I find the prices are really expensive. I don't have enough to last me a month," says Spence, who is unemployed, but just completed training to be an Internet technician.
John Tomagatick, 67, loads $80 dollars worth of bread, coffee whitener and other items into his truck outside the Northern Store in Attawapiskat. He expects it will last just a few days for his large family.
He remembers the days when Cree people used to rely on the land and getting good meant harvesting goose, moose, caribou and fish. It's how some still avoid big grocery bills.
"[It's] a lot of help to get wild food in the community. But some people really like it and other people don't like it very much," says Tomagatick.
John Henry, 40, says his grocery bill keeps getting bigger.
"It's way to the top with the prices now. Can't even get yourself four grocery bags [without paying] $200-$300," he says.
But the Northern Store says it has actually done a lot to keep prices from climbing at its stores on the James Bay Coast.
Derek Reimer, the director of business development for the parent Northwest Company, says thanks to federal food subsidies through the Nutrition North program, and his company's efforts to ship food on the winter road and then store it in warehouses, the cost of many grocery items has fallen 10 per cent since 2011.
But Reimer notes that inflation has risen by about just as much since then.
He says the Northern Store provides free fruits and vegetables to school kids in the far north and also helps out with breakfast programs, but Reimer would like to see the government tie food subsidies to inflation and pump up social assistance cheques for people who live in isolated communities.
"We are trying to be part of the solution to this challenge," he says.
The other store in Attawapiskat is MKS, a general store that opened in 1976.
It doesn't have produce, but does have milk, eggs, dry goods, canned food and frozen meals, which manager Sylvia Koostachin-Metatawabin says are often sold at cost.
"The high cost of living has been gradually going up over the years," she says.
"We try to look at our community members needs, at the same time looking at it from a business perspective in terms of profit."
Koostachin-Metatawabin, who is also on Attawapiskat council, says another way to combat the high cost of living is to create jobs and get more people off of welfare.
She says governments, from her own First Nation all the way to Ottawa, don't do enough to support on reserve entrepreneurs like her who can expand and put more people to work.
"I don't know. We're just trained to think that your own people can't provide the service. Maybe it's just the colonial mentality people have," says Koostachin-Metatawabin.
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