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

field team

She stripped a river full of this pesky invasive plant — by hand

She stripped a river full of this pesky invasive plant — by hand

Katie Church has yanked so many patches of the pesky invasive European water chestnut this summer, she has dreams about doing it. "I look at the chestnut in the water and [dream of] removing it and making sure everything is clear," she laughs. Church has just finished leading a field team of five summer students hired by the non-profit Invasive Species Centre. The group was tasked with searching, finding and plucking the thick, rooted green invasive aquatic plant by hand along a 30-kilometre stretch of the Welland River, in Ontario's Niagara Region.

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