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 is about to throw another wet and windy punch our way this weekend, with “continuous and significant rainfall” and strong winds forecast from Victoria to Port Hardy starting Saturday morning or afternoon, depending on where you live. Rainfall, which is expected to last until Monday in some areas, will be heavier than the season’s initial atmospheric river on Thursday that knocked out power to more than 18,000 homes and caused dangerous driving conditions.
On Tuesday, an emotional call came into our Chilliwack office, along with a video that was hard to watch. A small school of coho salmon struggled to push from one tiny pool of water to another in a futile effort to spawn. The cool, clean water they needed to survive and lay their eggs was nowhere to be found. Scenes like this are playing out across B.C. as this record-setting drought kills salmon, trees and other flora and fauna en masse.
