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.
Mother Nature has turned Lake Manitoba into a visual art project that has an ice expert in awe. What would typically be a flat, frozen surface has been turned into something more resembling pebbles and stones, as far as the eye can see. In another area, the water has crystallized into geometric lines that look like someone spilled a box of toothpicks or needles on the ground and they froze there.
The heat wave that scorched most of Western Canada last week accelerated the melting of alpine glaciers, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta told the Calgary Eyeopener on Tuesday. "It's very concerning," said Jeffrey Kavanaugh, an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences. In the mountains, temperatures cool down about 1 C with every 100 metres of elevation gain — but when record-breaking temperatures swept through the Rockies, even the highest alpine regions couldn't escape it.
The climate crisis is shrinking glaciers around the globe at a rate that startles even scientists who study the process. In British Columbia, the transformative effects extend from mountaintops, down valleys and into coastal waters. The more experts learn about what’s happening, the more they realize the complex, challenging implications of the Big Melt. Brian Menounos, a glaciologist based at the University of Northern British Columbia and a Hakai Institute affiliate, is sounding the alarm. It’s his job to document the glacial decline, and provide the best information possible to prepare for a future when the critical benefits we reap from healthy mountain ice are no longer available.
