Blackbird Creek quickly transformed from a smelly, frothy mess to a home for fish and other wildlife after the mill in Terrace Bay, Ont., stopped using it as a wastewater canal. But the future of both the creek and the town is uncertain
Researchers use the name “Devil’s Asshole” to mark the sampling location where a pulp mill’s effluent pipe meets Blackbird Creek, near Terrace Bay, Ont.
Photo: David Jackson / The Narwhal
Life after a pulp millIn Ontario, a pulp mill shutters and a creek comes back to life. But Blackbird Creek and the town of Terrace Bay both face uncertain futures.
Locals in Terrace Bay, Ont., often recount a story: a family back from vacationing in the Rockies mistook a steamy creek for a sulphurous hot spring like the ones out west. As the lore goes, a mill worker nearby warned them to get out — and the family ended up with rashes across their bodies.
That might be hearsay. But the steamy water body? That’s Blackbird Creek, which for half a century has doubled as a wastewater canal for a pulp mill — with effluent bubbling before flowing into Lake Superior — and has been largely ignored by any and all levels of government.
Freelance journalist David Jackson wanted to document the horrors he’d long heard about, when something unexpected happened last January: that pulp mill shut down. Over the summer, David learned about two scientists who’d been paying attention to the creek since 2008. They told him the effects of the mill closure were obvious: it had come back to life, with fish jumping in the pools.
“They were truly the ones with a finger on the pulse of nature, the ones who understood there was a heart beating under the effluent,” David told me. “After visiting Blackbird Creek for the first time, I became tangled in a story of resilience, of experiencing nature reclaiming its dignity over industry.”
But the mill closure also spelled real-life implications for people in the region, who were forced to ask tough questions about their livelihoods. “If I was interested in a creek, the people in town were worried about their safety, stability, security and their future,” David said. “The creek was just something they had learned to live with.”
With buzz about a foreign investor, and efforts to keep the mill warm through the winter, there’s no knowing what the future holds just yet.
It’s a story about a dying industry and a northwestern Ontario town that’s suffering as a result — and, as David writes, a creek that has a new lease on life.
A couple months ago, you might have overheard someone in a Narwhal editorial meeting say that the chaos of Donald Trump’s second U.S. presidency has little to do with our mission to tell stories about the natural world in Canada. So much has changed.
To make sense of it all, reporters at The Narwhal have jumped fearlessly into the fray, writing and updating stories almost daily. The future is uncertain, but you can count on us, whatever comes next, to find the signal through the noise.
Find our cross-border coverage here — and consider bookmarking the page to come back to in a few days, when surely everything we think we know today will be entirely different.
Oh, and have a question about what this moment means for a corner of the natural world that’s close to you? Drop us a note and we’ll try our best to get it answered.
— Jacqueline Ronson, assistant editor
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Researchers use the name “Devil’s Asshole” to mark the sampling location where a pulp mill’s effluent pipe meets Blackbird Creek, near Terrace Bay, Ont.
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With headlines blaring about tariffs, a trade war and a 51st state, it can be easy to feel helpless. Here’s where I see hope: The Narwhal is reporting doggedly on issues surrounding the natural world in Canada that feel so under threat today — including the autonomy and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples. It’s why I’m a member — and why I hope you’ll be one of 400 readers who joins me this April. — Tanya Talaga, journalist, author and recent Narwhal board chair
