CBC News - Nova Scotia pumpkin regatta cancelled indefinitely due to lack of water in Lake Pisiquid
If you’ve been following international news this year you may have seen stories about rivers drying up across Europe, especially in France and Italy. These are clear signs that climate change is having a drastic impact on water systems, and Canada is no different.
While the annual pumpkin regatta in Windsor, N.S. (where community members race giant pumpkins like unwieldy canoes) is hardly a critical aspect of daily life, the fact that it has been cancelled indefinitely is cause for concern. Lake Pisiquid, where the pumpkin regatta has been held annually since 1999 (usually), has dried up, making it impossible to hold the event.
When recreational activities start to be impacted by climate change, you can be sure that other uses for our collective water resources (agriculture, industrial, domestic supply, environmental goods and services) will be impacted before long. The Canada1Water project aims to put some foreknowledge of these impacts into the hands of decision makers across Canada, so that we can begin adapting to this uncertain future.
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“Lake Pisquid is dry right now and we haven’t had a full regatta since 2018, so it just felt, in consultation with our committee, that the timing was right,” Vanessa Roberts, the long-time logistics coordinator for the regatta, told Mainstreet from CBC Halifax.
Man-made Lake Pisiquid, which is dammed and formerly filled with fresh water from the Avon River, has been empty for more than a year. A ministerial order required the tidal gates at the Windsor causeway be operated in a way that improves fish passage to and from the Avon for short periods during tidal flows. That drastically lowered the level of the water.”