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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A school of more than 200 fish, not native to the Northwest Territories, streamed into J.H. Sissons School this week.

Stephanie Yuill, an employee with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, helped 13 parent volunteers attach artfully painted fish to a fence in front of J.H. Sissons school on Friday. - Daniel Campbell/NNSL photo

The fish, wooden in nature, were distributed to each child at the school. The students painted the fish and then parent volunteers helped attach them along a chain-link fence in front of the school.

Jacqueline Béland, a teacher at the school, said the art installation hopes to teach children about protecting waterways.

"We need people to be more aware of waterways," she said.

"So we put it out in the street as a reminder," Béland said of the installation.

The project was born out of the Stream of Dreams Mural Society, a Burnaby, B.C. based non-profit group that travels to schools across Canada educating children on watersheds.

Louis Towell, Stream of Dreams co-founder, was at the school on Friday helping 13 parent-volunteers attach the fish to the fence. She said it's the first time her society has been to the North.

"The kids here are so in touch with nature and the outdoors," she said.

"It's fantastic."

Towell said they've distributed more than 130,000 fish across Canada. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources contacted her last year to do training sessions in Yellowknife.

Stephanie Yuill, an educational specialist with the department, took a five-day training session offered by Stream of Dreams. Now she's able, along with other similarly trained ENR employees, to travel across the Northwest Territories educating children about watersheds.

The program includes a 45-minute teaching session. Children learn about how to care for and avoid pollution of watersheds.

"All drains go to fish habitats," Yuill said.

"We have so much water in the Northwest Territories, I think some people take advantage of it."

After the teaching session, children are given a single wooden fish, made in Vancouver, to paint. J.H. Sissons had more than 266 painted fish by the end of the program. On Friday, parent volunteers and government workers helped install them in front of the school.

Béland said the program fits perfectly with the school curriculum, which teaches children about respecting the land from a Dene perspective.

The program held at J.H. Sissons this week is the first of its kind in the Northwest Territories. ENR provided funding for the project.

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