Sweetgrass planted along the shoreline of the Kaministiquia River – Anishinabek News
October 19, 2023
THUNDER BAY — Fort William’s Bobbi Bannon recently helped plant sweetgrass and some shrubs with volunteers along the shoreline of the Kaministiquia River on Oct. 16 at Thunder Bay’s Mountdale Boat Launch.
“So far, the process is going very well, we have a lot of wonderful volunteers that came out to help,” says Bannon, environmental officer at Fort William. “It was a tough go at first with the site, the way the soil was, but we managed to get probably most of the plants that we have, the 50 sweetgrass, in the ground. We have some red osier dogwood that we have planted, [we’re] starting on the pin cherry, it’s prepped well and it looks beautiful.”
Fort William received $40,000 in funding through the federal government’s Freshwater Action Plan to naturalize and stabilize shoreline habitat by planting trees and shrubs in the Grand Point and the Kaministiquia River areas.
“The erosion in the banks is creating a lot of runoff going into the river,” Bannon says. “And it helps stabilize the shoreline for natural habitation, for ecosystems and species to survive and thrive.”
