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.
While communities in southern Manitoba battle flooding from the Red and Assiniboine rivers, people in the Interlake region are scrambling to save their homes from rising waters. Overland flooding from the Icelandic River, which runs into Lake Winnipeg, has washed out many roads and drenched fields in the municipality of Bifrost-Riverton. That municipality includes the community of Riverton and numerous hamlets, and surrounds the town of Arborg, about 100 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
As southern Manitoba remains enveloped in freezing temperatures and seemingly endless snow flurries, there's another "F" word that keeps coming to mind — flooding. The province's Hydrologic Forecast Centre released its first flood outlook for the season on Friday and is predicting major flows along the Red River and its tributaries, including the Roseau, Rat and Pembina rivers.
