VIDEO: A view from Attawapiskat before the crisis

Reporters, humanitarian workers and government officials descended on the small aboriginal community ofAttawapiskatthis weekin response tothe northern Ontario reserve's deepeninghousing crisis.

It was not the first time that journalists had turned their cameras on Attawapiskat. Earlier this year, CBC was in the communityfilming a special documentary series called 8th Fire: Aboriginal Peoples, Canada and the Way Forward.

The four-part series begins airing on CBC television and Radio-Canada on Jan. 12, 2012,and is hosted by Wab Kinew, a CBC journalist originally from Onigaming First Nation, anOjibwa communityin northern Ontario. It will examine Canada's fraught500-year-old relationship with indigenous peoples and introduce viewers toa new generation of aboriginal Canadians who are reclaiming their culture and their confidence.

Shannen's dream

The video above is from the third episode in the series, titledWhose Land is it Anyway? It was filmed in June 2011, directed by Michel Philibert, and produced byMarie-Claude Pednault and Claude Gagnon.

Itexplores some of Attawapiskat's past and current struggles and tellsthe tragicstory ofShannen Koostachin, a teenage girl from Attawapiskat who leda highly publicized fight to try to convince the federal government to build a new school in her community. The new school was to replace the grade school that hadclosed because the site it stood on was contaminated.

Shannen waskilled in a car accident in 2010 at the age of 15, and Attawapiskat children are still attendingelementary school in prefabricated, portableclassrooms.

As part of the 8th Fire project, CBC and Radio-Canada will launch a website of the same name in mid-December that will present dozens of original videosby aboriginal filmmakers from across the country. You canpreviewone of the videos about the northern Ontario First Nations community of Pikangikum hereand visit theproject's Facebook page.

Attawapiskat is a Cree community a few kilometres upstream from James Bay on the Attawapiskat River, 500 kilometres northeast of Timmins, Ont. It has had a chronic housing shortage for years, one that was exacerbated two years ago when several families had to move out of their homes because of a sewage backup. Existing housing stock on the reserve is overcrowded andin poor condition; several houses have been condemned and had to be vacated.

Because the band council that runs the reserve cannot afford to build enough new housing, and does not currently have enough land on the reserve to build the subdivision it says it would take to accommodate everyone on its waiting list, Attawapiskat residents have resorted to makeshift solutions. More than 100 people have been living inwood-frame tents, repurposed garages and sheds, and two large trailers that weredonated by the De Beers mining company, which operates a diamond mine 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat, to temporarily house the people displaced by the sewage backup.

Below are some facts of interest about the community and its current housing shortage.