Crawford The Fish
Hello, I am 13 years old and I live in Cochrane AB. I have 3 older siblings and I am in the W.I.L.D class. The W.I.L.D class is a class that is moving and inspiring. We like to go outside and we go on overnight camps and lots of day trips. We learn a lot about water and the pollution in our water. I like camping, biking, tubing and lots of other stuff.
It was a bright summer day on the Churchill River. The surface looked like flashy glass. Moreover, the water was balmy and crystal clear, the fish scales were a shiny reflection from the blazing sun. There was one fish named Crawford, he had dazzling bright pink glowing gills. Crawford was not like the other fish around him, he was bigger and had big gray sharp teeth, like great white shark teeth. He was not the kind of person to hurt anyone he just looked mean.
He was going for his normal morning swim down the river scraping his belly on the sharp rocky river bed. When he came to a stop as he saw something unusual on the shore, he thought to himself; “is it a fisherman or a kayaker?” No, it was a human holding a weird-shaped tool. Crawford had never seen something like this before. It was a piece of wood that had a stone boomerang at the top. The human was holding the weird tool in his hands while it seemed like the human was hitting one of the mountains on the river shore. As the human kept hitting the mountain, the mountain started grumbling in little pieces. Crawford thought to himself should I ask what this destructive human is doing to our mountain? However a few moments later, Crawford poked his large nose out onto the surface, and he asked the human, “what are you doing?”. The human looked at Crawford with a weird look and replied mining.
Crawford saw one of the pieces of the mountain fall into the water. The piece of rock seemed as if it was releasing a toxin into the river. One fish that was coming upstream went right through the toxin. The fish started coughing and fell to the river bottom. Crawford swam up to the sick fish but it was dead on arrival. The fish was one of the classmates from Crawford’s school. Crawford tried to turn him over and do CPR but there was no use. The fish had already been infected. Crawford’s big heart cries with sadness. As he just witnessed the death of one of his friends, Crawford knew what killed his friend. It was one of the pieces of rock from the mountain that was caused by the human.
Crawford’s nose broke through the river surface and yelled at the human, “Stop mining, please!”
The human looked over at Crawford’s crying red eyes and said “Why?”
Crawford responded, “It is very bad for the environment.”
The human responded with a nasty tone and replied “I don’t care.”
Crawford immediately responded, “You should care because you are polluting the water that is killing my friends and these pieces of rock that you have taken from that beautiful mountain on the edge of the Churchill River, are falling into the river and destroying our homes.”
The human looked over the edge of the river bank and down to the bottom of the clear water. He saw the fish that he just killed and he felt so bad. “I am so sorry. I thought that mining was not harming the environment but it is, in a very bad way.”
Crawford asked the man, “So you didn’t know that you were harming the environment?”
The man replied, “no” and said, “again, I am very sorry for what I have done.” The man said to Crawford, “from this day on, I will teach all the humans around me that we need to stop anything that has anything to do with harming the environment. I will teach the other humans that we need to take care of our environment and treat it well, and that we need to respect, protect, and nurture water.” The man said also that he will teach other humans how important it is and that we need to thank the water because we use it everywhere in our everyday lives.
As the day went on Crawford realized how much of a connection he has with the water. He realized that if he did not have water he would die because Crawford is a fish. He also thought that the water provided him with food. As Crawford and the mining man went to bed they both realized what an impact they made today.