As a lake rises, residents recede

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This article was published 16/06/2011 (5456 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CHALET BEACH — Lake Winnipeg was dead-calm Wednesday, but anyone who knows Manitoba’s largest lake knows it won’t stay that way.

What’s as flat as glass one moment can be whipped up in minutes with a good wind.

The lake is slowly climbing to a near-record level this summer — it was measured at 716.63 feet Wednesday and forecast to peak at about 717 feet in a month — which means potential flooding in communities throughout the south basin, depending which way the wind blows.

For Sherisse Picklyk Dear and her young family at Chalet Beach — sandwiched between Netley Marsh and the southend of the Lake Winnipeg basin — the only choice they have is to flee when the wind and the waves come up.

The RM of St. Andrews has already told them their flood-fighting plan is to evacuate a handful of permanent residents and cottagers.

Building dikes to protect their homes and cottages isn’t part of that plan.

“When they told me they couldn’t do anything, I thanked them for their honesty, and I cried,” she said.

“Many people have already left because they’re tired of fighting the lake,” she added, showing where a dike built in 2005 was recently plugged with sandbags. “The bottom line for me is that I don’t want to leave.”

But she, her husband Laurie and their two boys might not have a choice when the big waves come. Their home of seven years has already seen minor flooding from the lake this spring.

The ruins of a cottage further east on the beach are a reminder of how bad it can get. The cottage was split apart by the waves in last October’s “weather bomb” storm.

They’re also all too familiar with what happened May 31 when a windstorm that brewed up waves on Lake Manitoba pounded cottages and homes at Delta Beach and Twin Lakes Beach.

“You just don’t know what you’re going to wake up to in the morning,” Chalet Beach resident Joan Baryluk said. She and her husband Lionel have lived on the lake since 1974. “You just pray the wind doesn’t shift.”

Long gone is the day when they had white sand beaches and dunes; they started disappearing in the mid 1980s and are now under water.

“That water started to creep up and we’ve been battling it ever since,” Joan said.

Nearby at Dunnottar, the local council recently decided to build only three piers this summer for lake access rather than the usual eight. Council made the decision because with the rising lake levels, the potential for summer storms to wipe out piers is great.

At Petersfield to the south, most homeowners and cottagers are making sure their dikes along Netley Creek are secure. When north winds blow on Lake Winnipeg, water is pushed inland on the creek.

“With the height of the lake, it’s a hugh concern,” Petersfield resident Dean Nicolson said. “Heaven help us if the water comes up over the stupid dike.”

St. Andrews emergency coordinator Darcy Hardman said the RM is in contact with the province on the threat from the lake and whether or not permanent dikes should be raised or people in unprotected areas like Chalet Beach should leave.

“Right now it’s kind of a waiting game to see if the situation becomes more serious,” he said.

That’s little comfort for Picklyk Dear and her family and friends.

“My question is, why do we have to be wiped out?” she said. “When is it going to stop?”

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca