Cleaning up Yellowknife’s Frame Lake takes more than one approach

More than two-dozen volunteers answered a call to help clean up Frame Lake on Saturday morning in Yellowknife, pulling everything from clothing to kegs out of the water and shoreline.

The clean-up was organized by Isabel Hilgendag and Madeline Patenall from Wilfrid Laurier University. Hilgendag and Patenall said they were inspired to organize the clean-up after seeing garbage while hiking around Frame Lake.

“It’s really unfortunate because the lake is central to Yellowknife and close to the city, so it’s kind-of a representation of how we treat our environment,” Hilgendag said.

Saturday’s clean-up is one step toward a healthier Frame Lake. Patenall, meanwhile, is part of a separate, longer-term project to restore what she calls a “stressed” lake.

Research for her PhD will study the impact of an aerator recently installed in Frame Lake by the Diavik diamond mine.

The aerator is part of the mine’s years-long plan to aerate the dead downtown lake, a community project that provides the lake with oxygen in the hope it can one day support fish again.

Currently, over the winter, oxygen depletes “really quickly” in Frame Lake, Patenall said.

“By those late winter months, there’s actually no oxygen in the lake, and due to some chemical reactions, that causes a lot of phosphorus and arsenic in the sediments to move into the water,” Patenall said.

“With the additional oxygen from the aerator, we may actually see some of that phosphorus and arson retained in the lake sediments, keeping it out of the water.”

That could cause a “cascade of potentially beneficial effects on the lake,” Patenall said, including “some biological improvements through increasing zooplankton populations.”

An aquatic invertebrate, zooplankton form a huge part of fish diets. “With Diavik planning to reintroduce fish, it’s important for us to know the health of their food chain in the lake,” said Patenall.

Saturday’s clean-up was supported by both Wilfrid Laurier University and Aurora College, which provided garbage bags, gloves and coffee for volunteers.

The clean-up ran from 10am to 2pm and volunteers met at Somba K’e Park. By 10:30am, 27 people had shown up to help out, filling garbage bags with trash pulled from the shores and waters of Frame Lake. Some of the garbage they collected included cinder blocks, four kegs, a basketball, and items of clothing.

Hilgendag said she was “really happy” with the turnout. Given how successful the clean-up has been so far, she said there may be another one next year, and it could become an annual event.

“It’s been great to see how excited people are, because I’ve kind-of come to love Frame Lake through my research,” Patenall said. “But I was like, oh, will people be interested in it? Will they be as excited about the event as we are?”

“The excitement has been met,” Patenall said, adding that she was “really grateful.”

“It’s amazing… it’s been a great morning.”