Lakeview School’s Grade 8 class contributes to the restoration of M’Chigeeng Creek

October 9, 2019
Eria Panimick-Kastoff and Tessa Paul, Grade 8 students at Lakeview School, hard at work planting trees in M’Chigeeng First Nation.

By Maren Kasunich

M’CHIGEENG FIRST NATION— In early September, Lakeview School’s Grade 8 class spent the day with Manitoulin Streams in the M’Chigeeng Creek. The students all worked together to help clean up garbage, plant trees, and build a weir/wing deflector in the creek. Manitoulin Streams (led by Seija Deschenes) has partnered with the Grade 8 class for the past eight years to help create a healthy, thriving ecosystem in the creek.

To start their day, the students put on hip waders and went up and down the creek searching for garbage; this will help to ensure the fish will survive and not get stuck in trash or injured. Straws, bottles, plastic bags, metal items, Styrofoam and other man-made items that don’t decompose for a long time, can be pretty dangerous for fish travelling through the creek.

Later the class planted trees of many different species. Planting trees helps cleanse the air. Seija said that planting trees also helps to shade the water, cooling it. This is very important for the creek because this will help the creek to remain a comfortable temperature for the fish, bugs and wildlife living in the area.

The students then made rock structures called “wing deflectors”. Wing deflectors are very important in this program. They help the water to flow faster through the centre of the wing deflectors and weirs. These structures also contribute to making a spawning area for fish to lay their eggs.

Hopefully sometime in October students from Collège Boréal will come back and do electrofishing in this creek. Electrofishing will us to learn about the different species of fish living in the creek. This will help Lakeview School to know if the hard work they are doing is paying off in the long run of things.

This has been a really great experience and opportunity to partner with Manitoulin Streams. If the program with the Grade 8 class continues each year, this reporter believes that it will make a very big impact on the health of the creek. Thank you to Seija, Maria, Sue, and Maddie from Manitoulin Streams.