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.
The Northwest Territories hamlet has spent years coming up with a plan to move some homes away from its rapidly eroding coast, but the problem could be complicated by erosion of an island that currently protects Tuktoyaktuk’s harbour. With less sea ice cover, storms have more open water across which to whip up waves that can batter the community and hasten erosion.
Bit by bit, Gordon Oliver's backyard is falling into the ocean. The Mainland, N.L, resident has already moved his fence back twice — three metres each time. His house now sits on the edge of a cliff, a few metres from the water's edge. "It's getting about the time now where I'm going to have to move," said Oliver, who built his house on an otherwise picturesque piece of land 35 years ago. "When we were kids we used to play softball here and you couldn't bat the ball over the bank. You got no problem to do it now."
Islanders looking toward a future of more frequent extreme weather events may not be able to find the protection they need through insurers just yet. A report released last month said that by 2050, the province will see significantly more severe weather conditions due to climate change. The report said there will be increased risk of coastal erosion, heat waves, heavy rain, flooding, severe ice storms and droughts.
The changes caused by declining ice cover on the Great Lakes are pretty bad, but it's not all doom and gloom. Ice cover on the Great Lakes has declined in the past 40 years with average ice coverage dropping up to 75 per cent, depending on the lake. "We rely a lot on the Great Lakes for shipping ... so an ice-free Great Lake is not a barrier to shipping. But beyond that there are a lot of negatives associated," said Mike McKay, the executive director for the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER), based at the University of Windsor.
