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.
Devastating flooding last spring has many in the farming community around Hay River, N.W.T., contemplating their future. Andrew Cassidy and Helen Green, owners of Greenwood Gardens, are still deciding on their next move as they grapple with what's left of their home and business after floodwaters tore through the Paradise Gardens valley in May. "The flooding was really damaging, like it washed away soil, it washed away our raised beds," Cassidy said.
The Canada Reads 2022 theme, "One Book to Connect Us," was at the heart of the first round of debates as the five champions talked about the contending books. Forest ecologist and author Suzanne Simard is defending Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Müller. The Cree activist tells his life story in this debut memoir, from facing the effects of intergenerational trauma as the son of residential school survivors to becoming a committed leader in the environmental movement. Along the way, Thomas-Müller remained tied to his Cree heritage and spirituality to create a vision of healing within oneself and with the Earth.
The Columbia River Treaty, an international agreement governing the flow of water between British Columbia and six U.S. states, will be 55 years old this year. It has not aged well. The river springs from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains of B.C. and winds 1,930 kilometres through the Northwestern United States – Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming. No other river in North America spills more water into the Pacific Ocean.
