Protecting Gitchigumi project moves forward to restore cultural integrity and history in Pays Plat

By Rick Garrick

PAYS PLAT — Pays Plat is looking forward to receiving $99,431 in federal government funding through the Great Lakes Protection Initiative to continue its Protecting Gitchigumi project for another two years. Thunder Bay-Superior North MP Patty Hajdu announced the funding, which was part of about $175,000 in funding for two projects in the Thunder Bay area to improve water quality in Lake Superior, on Aug. 6 in Thunder Bay.

“We’re going to be going into our third and fourth year with this project,” says Debbie King, environmental technician at Pays Plat. “Our main goal is by performing water, soil and sediment sampling in our First Nation and traditional territory we’re creating a baseline data base that will enable us to recognize any changes over time. So if there was an adverse result identified, we would be able to remediate that almost immediately.”

King says the community has been sampling water in the Pays Plat River, where some houses are located nearby with septic fields, for nutrients that might indicate if a septic field was failing and seeping into the river.

“If something like that were happening, we would be able to identify that really quickly and get it fixed,” King says. “Also it will help to locate any sources of pollution and allow us to remediate that in a timely fashion. It’s just ensuring that water quality is maintained for generations.”

The project also involves the documentation of flora and fauna in the area to help determine if there are any populations of native species at future risk.

“Some of these plants are Arctic disjuncts, which is really interesting because some of these plants aren’t found anywhere else except the Arctic,” King says, noting the plants are located on rocky outcrops on islands along Lake Superior. “So keeping those protected and raising awareness that these kind of plants are here is part of the project. These little plants are so delicate and they just grow out of little soil pockets in the rock.”

King says a couple of students from the community usually work on some of the project’s water-based studies during the summer.

“People in the community want to protect their traditional territory,” King says. “It’s where we hunt and fish, so everybody is on board with this project to make sure it’s successful.”

King says workshops are also held to provide the community with information on results from the project.

“If there was to ever be a negative report, they would know,” King says. “So far, there hasn’t been anything — our waters, soils and sediments have been just pristine.”

But King adds that some plastic nurdles have been found on the Lake Superior shoreline, noting that a train derailment released nurdles into the environment about 15 years ago.

“We are still picking them up in our soil samples out on the beaches on the islands and on the mainland shoreline,” King says.

King says the project also includes the identification and eradication of invasive species.

“The people on the reserve are really keeping an eye out,” King says. “I’ve had so many people come in and say they saw something, so they are really engaged.”

Hajdu says Pays Plat is looking to restore its cultural integrity and history.

“It’s exciting to see Pays Plat receive funding to protect the environment and do the kind of research they need to understand better what kind of environmental treasures we have on the north shore and protect their own cultural way of life that is so critically integrated with the environment,” Hajdu says.