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's a sight Andrew Arreak says he's never seen before in Pond Inlet: open water at a time when the sea ice should be thick enough to sled on. Some people are still going out in boats. Others are finding alternate ways of accessing the land, since the ice they rely on for hunting and fishing is now a month late forming. In the Arctic hamlet of about 1,600 people, high winds keep pushing the sea ice away from the community, Arreak said.
A Welsh company plans to test a wind-powered machine in Nunavut next winter that, if successful, will thicken sea ice as part of an effort to keep it around longer. "What we can do then is, hopefully, mitigate some climate change through the use of the machines and build up the ice and, therefore, actually protect the Arctic habitat and restore the ecosystem up here," said Cían Sherwin, CEO of Real Ice, based in Gaerwen, Wales.
In the last week of April, the Canadian Ice Service recorded the lowest amount of sea ice in Labrador in its history of record-keeping, which dates back 50 years. The coast of northern Labrador is currently down to about 14 per cent of its ice cover, according to the CIS, a contrast to the average ice cover for this time of year of about 35 per cent.
A decade-long warming trend in the Gulf of St. Lawrence continued in 2020 with deep waters reaching record highs, according to ocean climate data released Tuesday by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Water temperatures at depths of 200, 250 and 300 metres were higher than any measured in the Gulf since records started in 1915, hitting highs of 5.7 C, 6.6 C and 6.8 C. All were well above the normal variations.
