Remote Arctic village residents send Quebec couple packing (flew in to escape C19)
To local leaders in the remote village of Old Crow in Yukon’s far north, the young Quebec couple who got off a plane last Friday immediately “looked out of place.”
When they asked the man and woman what had brought them to town, they were shocked by the response: The pair had driven across the country to Whitehorse and then flown to Old Crow to seek refuge from the coronavirus pandemic — a journey inspired by a dream.
“They perceived our community as a life raft from COVID-19,” Dana Tizya-Tramm, chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, told the Star.
Townsfolk knew what they had to do: Isolate the couple and get them on the next flight out. In the Arctic community of roughly 280 people, Old Crow has only one nursing station and a doctor who flies in once every couple of months; they can’t risk the chance of a coronavirus outbreak.
About 48 hours later, police escorted the couple onto a plane, which took them back to Whitehorse.
“With the low capacity within remote communities we’re more susceptible to the virus than large cities. You’ll be endangering remote communities. They have not only endangered themselves but our community as well,” Tizya-Tramm said.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/03/30/dreams-are-not-passports-remote-arctic-village-residents-recount-bizarre-encounter-with-quebec-couple-fleeing-coronavirus.html?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMedia&utm_campaign=1130am&utm_campaign_id=NationalNews&utm_content=dreamsnotpassports&utm_source=twitter&source=torontostar&utm_medium=SocialMedia&utm_campaign=&utm_campaign_id=&utm_content=
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