Feature image: Mniku is located in the Bras d’Or Lake in Unama’ki. (Map created with Google Earth, Version 10.52.0.0, 2023).
Across Atlantic Canada, communities are feeling the impacts of climate change. Coastal communities face increased flooding and erosion due to sea level rise, storm surge and waves from severe storms such as hurricanes. However, communities are also adapting to these impacts. Climate change adaptation provides an opportunity to build resilience and find creative ways to solve new and unfamiliar problems. One example of this is the shoreline protection work on Mniku, or Chapel Island, located near the Potlotek and Eskasoni First Nations in Unama’ki (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia).
Faced with rapid erosion, local leaders and community members are turning to nature-based approaches for protecting the island, which has long been a traditional sacred gathering place for Mi’kmaw communities. Thanks to funding from the Government of Nova Scotia, CLIMAtlantic spoke with Wasuek Googoo, Infrastructure Co-Manager at the Union of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq (UNSM), to learn more about this adaptation work.
Climate change impacts faced by the community
The communities of Eskasoni and Potlotek face major climate change impacts from coastal flooding and erosion.
“They had been losing a lot of shoreline in the last few years, so their priority has been shoreline restoration. They are running out of room for development, for housing, for infrastructure,” explains Googoo.
“They are running out of room for development, for housing, for infrastructure,” says Wasuek Googoo, Infrastructure Co-Manager at the UNSM.
Mniku has lost around 7m of shoreline in the last 10 years, which is challenging due to the small size of the island, as well as its cultural and spiritual significance to Mi’kmaq communities.
“Pre-contact, we had always met on Mniku. Our leaders had always gone there for governance to issue out hunting and fishing grounds for clans. They had resolved any issues or disputes between clans. They had gone there to pray and it has always been used as a burial ground. And so in the last little while, those grave sites have been exposed.”
With this sacred site and surrounding communities facing rapid erosion, protection of the shoreline is key.
“Right now with Mniku and the mainland part we’re hoping to also restore and reinforce the shoreline for their campground so that people can continue gathering at Mniku for another 100 years,” says Googoo.
Protecting the shoreline
To help safeguard the shore of Mniku from these impacts, the UNSM and others in the community are turning to nature-based approaches. Plans for a series of living dykes (grass-covered earthen walls) are in the works, with hopes for construction in the fall of 2024. Not only would these have fewer impacts on the coastal ecosystem than gray infrastructure (hard materials like concrete or rocks), but they are also highly effective at absorbing wave energy.
“What happens with the living dykes is that the energy that comes from, say, the waves, the storms… when it hits the gray infrastructure, like the rocks, the concrete, it’s static energy. So that energy has to go out, whereas with the living dykes, the water and the energy gets absorbed and the living dykes grow with the waves,” says Googoo on the benefits of the living dykes.
The living dyke project was also inspired by the living shoreline in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, which was constructed in 2022 and has since withstood multiple severe storms.
With a living shoreline, typically using a combination of hard infrastructure and plants, wave energy is absorbed instead of deflected.
A collaborative approach
Climate change adaptation is not a task to be completed by any one organization alone, and the shoreline adaptation work on Mniku is no exception. The project is a continuation of ongoing shoreline adaptation work and involves teamwork by many people.
“Potlotek and Eskasoni have people already in place, with public works, with infrastructure and housing, who have been working on these erosion protection efforts for some time now. They will be project managers as well,” Googoo shared. “We have leadership from our communities, because Potlotek’s Mniku is a sacred place for all our Mi’kmaq. We have [also] been leaning on a lot of the expertise and the experience of the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources. We’re very fortunate and we are very grateful for everyone’s help.”
Mniku (Chapel Island), Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, courtesy of the Union of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq & Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn.
Moving toward community resilience
The importance of this adaptation work goes beyond physically protecting the shoreline, explains Googoo.
“I think the excitement in the communities, knowing that something that they have been wanting for a long time, to restore the shoreline and to look at ways that aren’t as destructive, that are more sustainable, more natural. I think it’s really exciting, knowing that we’re going to be giving back to the Earth the way that we had intended. Knowing that we’re also going to be bringing in jobs to our communities has been very exciting. I think that in itself is a big success.”
The need for shoreline adaptation does not end with Mniku, and the UNSM hopes to see similar projects throughout Unama’ki and beyond.
“We’d like to see a lot of these concepts adopted, and to implement the same design into our communities, not just in Unama’ki, but also assist the mainland communities of CMM, the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq. Hoping that this will be able to move forward not just within the Union as a pilot project, but sustainable, and to build the capacity in our communities to maintain it.”
Googoo hopes people will be inspired to tackle their own adaptation projects. She says, “We need to focus on the resiliency of our people, and the resiliency of being able to overcome challenges and obstacles, and just push ahead and to collaborate with people that maybe we hadn’t thought about before and to just look at funding in other avenues. Natural infrastructure is new to all of us, it’s a new project. It’s a new pot of money, and so I just encourage anyone to just go for it to just apply and hope for the best. And if they need any help or support, they can always contact us at the Union.”
Googoo can be reached at agoogoo@unsm.org. To learn more about the UNSM, visit their website.
Other stories in this Series:
To come.
