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

access to drinking water

Fort McPherson, N.W.T., declares emergency as flooding threatens access to drinking water

Fort McPherson, N.W.T., declares emergency as flooding threatens access to drinking water

The Hamlet of Fort McPherson, N.W.T., declared a state of emergency over flooding on Tuesday evening. In a post on Facebook, the hamlet said it made the decision because flooding from the Peel River had cut off access to the community's airport and because access to fresh water could be "inaccessible in the imminent future." Earlier in the day, the hamlet said an emergency would be declared once flooding cut off the community's access to Deep Water Lake — meaning it would no longer have access to its water or sewage services. 

Need to beat the heat? This Ottawa fire hydrant is now a water fountain

Need to beat the heat? This Ottawa fire hydrant is now a water fountain

To give residents easy access to drinking water this summer, the City of Ottawa has installed a water fountain in the city's Chinatown neighbourhood that attaches to a fire hydrant much like a fire hose. Ottawa's water services department noticed during last summer's heat waves in western Canada people loved having drinking fountains and misting stations run off the cities' fire hydrants — so in the fall, they decided to recreate the idea here.

Rally calls for environmental accountability of mining companies

Rally calls for environmental accountability of mining companies

Representatives from communities impacted by mining projects in Colombia, the Philippines, Nunavut and the “Ring of Fire” region in Northern Ontario protested Monday outside the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s annual conference, a large event that attracts more than 1,000 exhibitors, 2,500 investors and 23,000 attendees. The Mining Injustice Solidarity Network, organizers of the rally, explained that the Ring of Fire is a proposed project covering a 5,000 square kilometre area in Northern Ontario that’s estimated to contain massive quantities of chromite, nickel and copper, among other critical minerals’ needed for the production of electric vehicles and other “green” technologies.

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