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.
As floodwaters from the Hay River rose in Paradise Gardens Sunday night, a neighbour knocked on the door of Bhreagh Ingarfield and her partner Thomas Whittaker's log home. It was Roger Candow, a longtime river watcher. He told them, "You've got to go now — the water's rushing over the road," recalled Ingarfield. The couple had been watching water levels rise and fall for days, waiting for them to go down like usual. When they bought their house in the fall with the hopes of opening a bed and breakfast, no one could remember flooding ever reaching near the property — not even during the flood of 1963.
