Nipissing First Nation Chief and Council have passed a motion that Nipissing First Nation will be closing all its businesses effective Tuesday, April 7 at 4 p.m. until Tuesday, April 21 at 4 p.m.
"By motion of Council to protect the safety and well-being of Nipissing First Nation members and to stop the spread of COVID-19, all businesses on NFN that offer storefront sales and services assessed by the public at a physical location shall cease operations for 14 days," the NFN release stated.
That includes the Eagles Nest and Chesters service stations regularly accessed just off Highway 17 between North Bay and Sturgeon Falls.
“Nipissing First Nation is still not planning to shut down access to our communities,” says Chief Scott McLeod in a release.
“Council believes closing our storefront businesses for two weeks will be more effective in limiting the increased traffic into our communities that we have been witnessing, and that we know puts our community members at an increased risk. Their safety and well-being is first and foremost in our decision-making in these difficult times. We simply don’t have the resources to restrict access to all the entrances to our territory and if the traffic to the stores dries up, there is no need to do that.”
Another important consideration in not closing access to NFN, as Chief McLeod has noted previously, is the importance of maintaining access to medical and other essential services in Sturgeon Falls and North Bay due to Nipissing First Nation’s geographic location. NFN is making arrangements to ensure its members can access food and other items they normally would access through local retail stores.
A notice to the community on when and how to access local community food will be posted to the NFN website this week.
NFN reminds local members that we are providing transportation for medical trips and to grocery stores or pharmacies multiple times per week at no charge.
