If you don’t know the land ‘it will eat you up’; Manhunt for accused killers shifts to First Nations community

Adrian Humphreys

Gillam notably has one road in and one road out; but York Landing, home to about 500 Cree, has an even stronger marker of isolation. It has zero roads in

It’s difficult to rush into York Landing, as police found when the manhunt for two suspected killers shifted to the remote community in northern Manitoba. Thankfully, it is also hard to rush out of it.

After a possible sighting of fugitives Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, suspects in three murders in northern B.C., RCMP officers shifted their focus southwest, Sunday afternoon, from Gillam, Man., where they were last seen, to the York Factory First Nation in York Landing.

Gillam is where the road ends in the region, notably having one road in and one road out; but York Landing, home to about 500 Cree, has an even stronger marker of isolation.

It has zero roads in.

“Our only road comes in the wintertime,” said Judy Sinclair, a resident who lives on York Landing’s shore. “If they don’t make us that road after the ferry stops, we’re stuck here until we can pass over the ice on snowmobiles.

“We’re an isolated community, eh. We only have the air and the ferry.”

That ferry leaves twice a day, most days, for the winding, two-hour journey north to Split Lake, the closest community connected to the highway, Manitoba Provincial Road 280, which is the road McLeod and Schmegelsky drove on to Gillam last week, where their SUV was found burning in a ditch.

It’s only 90 kilometres from Gillam to York Landing, measured along a straight line, but you can’t get there anywhere close to a straight line on the ground.

When word of the possible sighting came Sunday about 4:15 local time — two young men matching the fugitives’ descriptions seen running from the community’s dump by members of the Bear Clan Patrol, an Indigenous community watch group — it took an hour to get the first RCMP assets into town by air.

On Monday, the ferry broke its usual schedule of an 8 a.m. departure, leaving York Landing about 5 a.m., to pick up RCMP officers and vehicles gathered in Split Lake. It eased back into York Landing about 9 a.m., said Sinclair who watched the commotion.