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 Patricia Paul saw her bathtub filling with cloudy, brown water, she decided she’d had enough. She took a photo of the scene: three inches of water so thick and dark, the bottom of the tub couldn’t be seen – a sharp contrast to the white plastic tub walls decorated with duck and turtle stickers for her young children. “It was almost black, and it smelled gross,” Paul remembers.