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.
When the water level in the Mactaquac headpond unexpectedly dropped by more than a metre, it caught a lot of people off guard. "My boat is trapped," said Jean Paul Arseneau in Lower Queensbury. Arseneau keeps his boat on a lift to protect it from waves. But when the water level dropped, the boat was stranded. "It's sitting on a lift up in the air, it takes about three feet of water to take it down," said Arseneau. "And there's not a foot of water, so you can't put it down."
