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

Mikisew Cree First Nation

First Nations group in Alberta say program to clean up tarsands is ‘underfunded’

First Nations group in Alberta say program to clean up tarsands is ‘underfunded’

“It’s definitely a concern expressed by community members seeing changes in water, traditional foods and changes in their health. “More data and information is necessary to answer these questions… but there are toxic sludge and tailings ponds here… these leak into the watershed,” said Lepine. Last summer, APTN News reported on a story where Keepers of the Water, an Indigenous environmental group, raised alarm over the proposed dumping of treated tailings pond water from the Alberta oil industry into the Athabasca River.

UN monitors thrust into debate over what to do with 1.4 trillion litres of oilsands wastewater

UN monitors thrust into debate over what to do with 1.4 trillion litres of oilsands wastewater

When the Mikisew Cree First Nation grew tired of warning elected officials that the Peace-Athabasca Delta in northern Alberta was slowly drying up, they went international in a bid to find help. That’s how a group of United Nations monitors came to be seated in a community hall in the remote community of Fort Chipewyan last weekend, going over the nation’s list of concerns for Wood Buffalo National Park, the site of one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world and and home to endangered whooping cranes and the continent’s largest wild bison population.

Is Wood Buffalo National Park 'in danger'? UNESCO investigators are in Canada to find out

Is Wood Buffalo National Park 'in danger'? UNESCO investigators are in Canada to find out

A United Nations body that monitors some of the world's greatest natural glories is in Canada again to assess government responses to ongoing threats to the country's largest national park, including plans to release treated oilsands tailings into its watershed. In a series of meetings beginning Thursday, UNESCO investigators are to determine whether Wood Buffalo National Park should be on the list of World Heritage Sites In Danger— a move the agency has already deemed "likely."

Follow us