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Communities along the Red River in Manitoba are bracing for another major flood this spring, even as some still have not finished repairing damage from last year's high water event. The Rural Municipality of Montcalm, which surrounds southern Manitoba communities like Letellier and St. Jean Baptiste, still has about $10 million to $15 million worth of repairs left to make, said Reeve Paul Gilmore.
Mistreatment of Innu people by colonial governments continues today, said an elder and activist who has fought for decades to protect the Innu's traditional culture and land in Labrador. "I will start on how we have been treated by the white man, and the treatment is still ongoing today," said Tshaukuesh (Elizabeth) Penashue, on Thursday when she began her testimony at an inquiry examining how Innu children and families have been affected by the child protection system.
Darryle Sinclair is one of many evacuees from Peguis First Nation who could be stuck without homes for years while plans for future home builds and flood mitigation efforts continue. "We have to move and relocate," Sinclair said. "For a replacement home, we have to wait until everything's ready and gets back to normal. It's tough." But as of now, he doesn't know when that will be.
According to the promoters, the region contains some of the world's largest deposits of spodumene, a rock from which lithium — key to the energy transition and the electrification of transport networks — is extracted. Nemaska Lithium describes itself as a corporation that "intends to facilitate access to green energy, for the benefit of humanity." The Whabouchi open pit mine will be located about 30 kilometres from the village of Nemaska, in the watershed of the Rupert River, considered one of Quebec's ecological gems. "If the water becomes contaminated by the mine, I don't see how we can limit the damage to the food chain," says Thomas Jolly, who was chief of Nemaska from 2015 to 2019, stressing the importance of fishing to his community.
Devastating flooding last spring has many in the farming community around Hay River, N.W.T., contemplating their future. Andrew Cassidy and Helen Green, owners of Greenwood Gardens, are still deciding on their next move as they grapple with what's left of their home and business after floodwaters tore through the Paradise Gardens valley in May. "The flooding was really damaging, like it washed away soil, it washed away our raised beds," Cassidy said.
Farmers learned a lot from the real-world whiplashing experiment you could call “Farming in 2021-22.” “Make sure your dugouts are deep enough,” said Ridgeville, Man., farmer Neil Claringbould, when asked what he learned from the brutal drought of 2021, as he showed other farmers and researchers one of his new water retention dams on a stream on his land. How about 2022? “We weren’t short of grass.”
Chief Arnie Lampreau of the Shackan Indian Band looks across the Nicola River that surged in November, pulling entire homes into its current and forcing residents to flee. Above its banks, the charred remains of yellow pines cover the mountains like burnt matchsticks — relics of a wildfire that roared across the landscape just months earlier. Lampreau grew up in the area along Highway 8 between Spences Bridge and Merritt, B.C., and said he can't help but think of the lush forests that once blanketed the hills.
I’m staring out my window into a snow drift almost to the eaves. Near-record accumulation and continued freezing temperatures are raising fears of widespread spring flooding, something we haven’t experienced in several years. Rather, we’ve lately become more familiar with the unpredictable flooding caused by extreme rain events. That’s the bad news. But last summer’s widespread drought severely depleted soil moisture, which means there’s a very large capacity to absorb excess runoff; and another dry spring could have spelled disaster for farmers. The good news is, with a gradual thaw and not much spring rain, our farmers could be in good shape heading into the growing season.
Dave Martens is working on rebuilding his poultry farm and his home, which he hasn't been able to live in since the Sumas Prairie region east of Abbotsford, B.C., was hit by floods triggered by historic rainfall in November. "Currently I'm at the point of trying to dry things out still," said Martens of the two farm houses he owns, one of which he lives in. "You hear people talk about people being back in their homes and things like that. That might be true for some, but not the majority."
Karl Meier has spent days battling to save his property and dairy cattle from flooding in British Columbia's Fraser Valley, but he says the biggest issue right now is with local law enforcement. "It was bad enough we had to fight the water, but now we've got to fight someone against what we're trying to do," said Meier. Meier owns U & D Meier Dairy in the Sumas Prairie region of Abbotsford, about 100 kilometres east of Vancouver. The area is under an evacuation order because of flooding in the nearby Sumas River. Police-enforced roadblocks have been set up around the area to prevent people from coming or going. Meier said this is making it difficult for people to bring in supplies to the farmers who have chosen to stay to protect their business and their animals.
