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.
I’m up to my knees in water, socks and sneakers submerged — why not? — a few hundred metres west of where Billings Bridge crosses the Rideau River. Not far from a busy, noisy, fumy stretch of Bank Street that typifies much of urban Ottawa, I’m stepping carefully over stones covered in seaweedy slime, immersed in a world of fish and frogs and dragonflies, between mainland Old Ottawa South and my magical destination: a small, unnamed, kidney-shaped island just off the Rideau’s north shore.
