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.
It was widely believed that cyanobacteria wasn't in lakes far north in Saskatchewan because the water was too cold, but a Grade 11 student at the Clearwater River Dene School is disproving those theories. Ava Haynes' research on cyanobacteria — also known as blue-green algae — in lakes near her home community in northwestern Saskatchewan earned her a Bronze Excellence Award at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Edmonton last month.
