For most of Dean Morgan’s 67-year life, he wasn’t able to drink clean water in his home.
“It’s just like a real slime…. It was like what they called beaver fever water.”
Sometimes, he would go to the creek near his home on IR #1 of St’uxwtéws (Bonaparte First Nation) to grab jugs of water because it was cleaner and safer than the water he was able to get from his taps.
Morgan and his brother used to take containers of the murky water to the chief and council and to federal representatives to ask if they would be willing to drink that.
For more than four decades, parts of his community dealt with on-and-off boil water advisories. In Canada, the federal government has committed to ending long-term drinking water advisories.
Indigenous Services Canada says 146 advisories have been lifted since 2015, but 32 remain in place.
Since 2020, St’uxwtéws …