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.
Nestled between jagged mountain peaks in Nahanni National Park Reserve, N.W.T., the Bologna Glacier stores water and serves as a smooth transportation corridor for animals like caribou, porcupines and wolverines. But, like ice all over the world, it's melting and shrinking in the warming climate, leaving the future uncertain for creatures that travel across it and ecosystems that exist below it — including the South Nahanni River, to which its melt water flows.
