Bread supplies in Chisasibi go toast

Whether it was personal or political, 2016 was a difficult year for a lot of people. The beginning of 2017 offered the opportunity for many to turn the page, focus on the future, and put the dark events of the past behind them.

For residents of Chisasibi, however, 2017 started on a threatening note. For those who hadn’t had an opportunity to see for themselves in the stores, posts on Facebook and social media made it clear that something sinister was going on – the entire Cree Nation of Chisasibi was out of bread.

It wasn’t just the Northern Store or the Co-op: it was the bread equivalent of the “Perfect Storm,” when bread was figuratively toast for a period of several days.

“We acted like animals when we saw bread in stores,” joked Rachel Martinhunter with a laugh. “I tried to steal a bread from an old lady!”

People took to Facebook to vent their frustration with humour.

“It caught a lot of people off guard, it surprised them. A lot of what people said on Facebook was poking fun at the situation. It wasn’t a serious case for most people,” said Bertie Wapachee. “Those who posted anything about bread, it was sarcasm.”

Still, Wapachee noted, “Probably the only people who panicked were the ones who couldn’t make bannock. Everybody else wasn’t too worried. If you can’t find bread, make some! I had some bread in my house, and if I was going to run out, I still had flour.”

Wapachee said that while he rationed his bread while the crisis sorted itself out, other people burned through the community’s supply of hot dog and hamburger buns to get their carbohydrate fix.

“I even saw people buying tortillas,” he added.

 

The bread shortage was the product of three individual failures. As Alice Snowboy, manager of the Chisasibi Co-op, explained, “We usually receive shipments twice a week – for bread and eggs. But over the holidays, we only got our supply once a week.”

Roger Orr, proprietor of the Retro Daze Café and corner store, explained that on his end, “We can’t order too much bread, because the expiry dates are about 10 days at the most. There is always a fear of having ordered too much then having to throw away cases. So we try to estimate how long the amount we ordered with the expiry dates will last on the shelf.”

 

Retro Daze receives its orders once a week on Thursdays, Orr underlined, so if they run out, they’re forced to wait until then to restock. Because the holiday season was coming, Retro Daze had been making double and triple bread orders, but it wasn’t enough.

“We still ran out,” Orr said. “It’s a gamble because bread expires too fast.”

Northern Store manager Ed MacKay referred all media inquiries to Northwest Company headquarters in Winnipeg.

“You have to be very careful with media and how things can be misconstrued,” Northwest Company’s Director of Business Development, Derek Reimer, said from Winnipeg. “I’ve seen a litany of stuff on Facebook that I know was wrong, but it doesn’t help when I get involved, so I stay out of it.”

Reimer said the company received only a partial order from their supplier. “We ran short of the products as a result,” he explained. “We’d put in for a larger order and we just didn’t receive it all.”

He emphasised that the Northern had placed two additional orders to their supplier, one of which had already been received as the Nation went to press.

Reflecting on the Great Bread Crisis of 2017, Wapachee said that Chisasibi has a history of making light of minor inconveniences, rather than letting them cause the community worry.

“We have fun with these types of things, and that was what we saw all over Facebook,” he said. “It’s similar to when we ran out of power, and the power was off for quite some time. While some people who aren’t prepared at all panicked, everybody else just went back to their ‘Cree mode.’ They exercised a bit to bring home some wood and make a fire. There’s always the people who aren’t prepared for these kinds of things, and this case was similar. We’re never scared – other than of the dam breaking – everything else, we can handle.”