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Bringing Baker Creek back Living classroom celebrates improvement in unique watercourseDaron Letts Northern News Services Published Friday, October 21, 2011
A new Living Classroom project at the Giant Mine site teaches young fishing enthusiasts about the creek and its surrounding ecosystem.
A team of community volunteers, non-profit organizations, corporations, and government researchers joined together to celebrate the narrow, fast-flowing watercourse this fall to design and install 17 interpretive signs describing the natural systems affecting the stream. Baker Creek originates northeast of Yellowknife and flows south through the Giant Mine site into Yellowknife Bay on Great Slave Lake. It is the only stream of its kind around Yellowknife Bay. Video Link: Underwater World of Baker Creek Beginning in 2006, the creek underwent rehabilitation to alter its flow and enhance the fish habitat after years of mining destroyed the creek's ability to support aquatic life. Today, a wide variety of fish species, as well as the invertebrates they feed on, have returned to the creek at various stages of their life cycles. "I think it's a very productive system now," said Bruce Hanna, senior habitat biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Hanna helped pull the Baker Creek sign project together under the umbrella of the Fly Kid Foundation. Established in 2006, the Fly Kid Foundation is an educational non-profit organization that promotes environmental conservation and awareness by developing fly fishing opportunities for Northern youth. The signs posted along the creek bank describe the fish that rely on the stream, such as white suckers. "Baker Creek is possibly the only small stream where suckers from Yellowknife Bay spawn," reads one of the panels. Other signs describe how Northern pike feed on sticklebacks near the culvert that runs beneath the Ingraham Trail, and how emerald and spot tail shiners enter the creek when water temperature rises above 15 C in summer. Arctic grayling also migrate to upper Baker Creek to spawn in spring and early summer. The chunky gravel that lines the creek bed is well-suited for concealing eggs until they hatch. Grayling larvae hide between the rocks until they mature into tiny grayling. After three or four weeks, the young fish make their way into Yellowknife Bay. They return to their birthplace to spawn four to six years later. "From my understanding this little creek is going to become a nursery for Yellowknife Bay," said Brian Heppelle, executive director of the Fly Kid Foundation and an environmental engineer with Environment Canada. "In the long run that is going to support angling and fishing opportunities for that bay if we do our job and conserve it properly." Historical information relating to the natural pristine condition of Baker Creek is virtually nonexistent, said Paul Vecsei, a consultant with Golder Associates who has worked closely with DFO to survey fish diversity and population in the creek since 2007. "There has been a dramatic improvement in fish diversity and overall numbers since the 1970s when mining was going on and Baker Creek appeared to be biologically dead," Vecsei said. Fishing is allowable in Baker Creek but is catch and release only for Arctic grayling. Eating fish or drinking water from the creek though is discouraged and will not be possible even after the restoration process is complete, according to recommendations from the Giant Mine Remediation Project. While most of the fish activity in the creek occurs in spring and summer when the creek level is high, there are still opportunities to see ducks and other fauna in and around the stream before the snow falls. The Fly Kid Foundation collaborated on the Baker Creek Living Classroom project with the NWT Mining Heritage Society, the City of Yellowknife, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Environment Canada, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development - Giant Mine Remediation Project, Deton'cho/ Nuna Joint Venture, Matrix Helicopters, and Diavik Diamond Mines Inc.
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