CBC Thunder Bay Sounds of the Season: Wasaya Airways touches down in Sandy Lake

A Wasaya Airways aircraft carrying food for remote First Nation communities has made its first stop as part of CBC Thunder Bay's 2017 Sounds of the Season.

The First Nations-owned airline is scheduled to take its shipments of food to Sandy Lake and Kasabonika Lake First Nations. The communities are about 600 and 700 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont., respectively.

• Planes full of food take to the skies for CBC Thunder Bay Sounds of the Season

• Eighth community comes on board for CBC Thunder Bay Sounds of the Season

When the food arrived in Sandy Lake, Monias Fiddler, one of the community's employees said, "it's a blessing." He added that the shipments of fresh vegetables are particularly welcome, because they supplement the meat harvested by hunters.

"The food that comes in, when it's given to the people, they're very grateful for that, and it actually does supplement the food that we get from the land here," he said. "I know there's still hunters that bring in wild game, and they distribute it to their family members and people who need food."

Friday's food shipment was stored in the community's band office when it arrived. Additional deliveries of food are expected to be made on Monday, after which, it will be distributed to the community.

Access to things like fresh produce is something that people in more urban areas can take for granted, said Michael Rodyniuk, the president and CEO of Wasaya.

"Obviously the shopping in Thunder Bay is pretty good, and just about anything you could imagine is available herebut at the same time, understanding that, in the north, that's not always the case," he said.

Rodyniuk said last year's Sounds of the Season initiative, where food was sent to Sandy Lake, showed how important deliveries like this are. "As soon as the engines were shut down, it was like a crush of people that went to the aircraft and wanted to see the team that was delivering the food."

In total, Sounds of the Season is expected to provide foodranging from canned goods and other pantry items to fresh produceto more than 8,000 people, many of whom are children.