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.
"You're going to see the injustice with the water, you're going to feel it without us having to sit down with David Suzuki and tell you how it happened, or why. ... You're going to figure that out by the human interaction between these people telling you their stories, and Layla learned about her own story."
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.”
