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.
Against the ravaging seas, Quebec's coastal communities have learned through bitter experience that the way to advance against climate change is to retreat. Over the past decade, civilization has been pulled back from the water's edge where possible along the eastern stretch of the Gaspé Peninsula where coastline is particularly vulnerable to erosion. Defences erected against the sea ages ago have been dismantled, rock by rock, concrete chunk by chunk.
