Nicole Hancock
Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony ...

Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.

Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony to heal Chedoke Creek

Healthy First Nations

‘Restoring water for our people’: Pilot project installs tap filters in Six Nations

‘Restoring water for our people’: Pilot project installs tap filters in Six Nations

The pressure was on for Rhonda Skye. Firstly, she was representing an innovative Indigenous-driven pilot program proposing a short-term solution to ongoing water quality issues on Canadian reservations, partnering the Dreamcatcher Foundation, Healthy First Nations and the Autumn Peltier Project. Well beyond that, the filter installation Skye was overseeing this morning was on her brother Scott General’s tap. “I’ll give her a shot,” Rhonda’s younger sibling laughed. “If she lies to me, I’m telling mom.”

Foundation working to bring filters for clean water across Ontario reserves

Foundation working to bring filters for clean water across Ontario reserves

Water is an extremely important part of Indigenous culture which makes the fact that 27 Indigenous communities across Canada are living with a boil water advisory while countless others struggle for access to clean water that much more devastating. “Water is very important to Indigenous people,” Beverley Maracle, a resident of Six Nations of the Grand River, told CityNews. “Water is medicine to Indigenous people and we need water for life. So water is life.”

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