Moose Factory Journal

Evidently there have been some would-be early birds. I know the type. You just have to have your canoe up and running before anyone else. You NEED to be first. The OPP have taken note of this and are not amused. There are notices around town and on the local TV channel warning us that we are being watched.

Be all that as it may be, … there IS an increasing slick of open water on The River on my side (the eastern side) of The Island. Solitary chunks of ice are racing down this channel. The current is very strong. On both sides of the slick, along both shores of The River, in other words, there remains a great deal of stationary ice. It’s all piled up in different directions. But the general water level gradually is getting lower every day.

The roads on The Island are thawing out. And flooding. And eating cars. One has to plan a trip across The Island now with some care. Several roads are blocked off to traffic, or impassable, or just not worth the wear and tear. The mud is up to our noses. Everything is getting covered with a light beige powder once that muds dries out — not the best time of the year. The choppers have gone into a frenzy. There was snow this morning. Everything is covered with white. At 8 AM the temperature is 23 degrees Fahrenheit. But spring is in the air.

And we are very, very lucky. Kashechewan has not done so well.

One would think, looking at Kashechewan, on a map, that The Albany River would be kind to it at break-up. After all, the village of Kashechewan is on the mainland, on the North shore of The Albany, astride a small channel (relative to The Albany). But all of that is to underestimate The Albany. The Moose — with all its fits and moods — is nothing like The Albany. And this has been a bad spring for Kashechewan.

Their airfield is closed. The ground is too wet. Ice hit their water intake apparatus and destroyed it. They have no water. And they have no sewer sysetm. The flooding water is within inches of their power plant. Power may have to be cut any time now. The entire community is being evacuated (again). Life in that community is difficult in the best of times; and this is not the best of times. Moosonee, Timmins, and Cochrane all are taking refugees. Other towns also are helping. Churches and volunteers are gearing up to do what they can do help these displaced and seriously stressed people. It’s all tough — all the way around.

Kashechewan’s situation has become urgent…. This just came in from The Archbishop…..

Dear Colleagues in ministry,

I have just received word from Rodney and Lisa BrantFrancis that Kashechewan is in imminent danger of flooding and the community is on evacuation alert. There has apparently been an ice jam and the river has risen rapidly and is threatening to breach the dykes which encircle the community. The community water intake has apparently been crushed and the community is without water and electricity. Water is starting to seep into the church basement, backing up through an old creek bed through a drain in the dyke. Some bottled water has been flown in, but the airport runway is now flooded and planes are unable to land there. When I asked Lisa how the people will be evacuated she thought that helicopter was the only way to get people out. Hopefully, the runway in Fort Albany is clear, and it will be a short shuttle to move people across there.

I understand that a couple of planeloads have left earlier, to carry evacuees to Cochrane, Ontario. Timmins has also been designated as a receiving area, and a third is St. Regis, near Cornwall.

I have asked Rod and Lisa to keep me posted, but I will be leaving early Sunday morning to attend National House of Bishops Meetings in Southern Ontario. I have also asked Sharon Murdoch to report on what, if anything is happening or planned for Cochrane.

I hope that most of you might pick up this message before Church services tomorrow, and that you will hold the community of Kashechewan, its people and especially Rod and Lisa in your prayers. (As you know St. Paul’s Parish was a special focus for our prayers in the Cycle of Prayer we share with the Diocese of Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island this week.) Lisa has had a severe cold for the past few days, and the stress of the flood watch is not conducive to good health!

Sincerely yours, in Christ,

Caleb

5:15 AM

The Moose continues to be about to flood. Last night — at around 8 PM, the water had come up high enough to touch one of the Hospital buildings near the Hospital docks. For those of you who have used the canoe ‘taxi’ service, this is the area where the taxis dock. There’s a sign there that now stands in water. The road going down to the docks is all under water. One of the Hospital sheds is now at the water’s edge. The old boathouse was emptied yesterday or the day before — just in case the Boat House itself became a boat. On the far side of the channel, the water just about touches the utility poles. In the center of the channel the current is very strong.

This morning The River seems to have less ice congestion in front of the Rectory. The water level continues at about 5-10 feet below the surface of the road in front of The Little Church.

Paul Lantz has posted some really great shots of the ice and Break-up on the Moosonee side of The Moose.

As you might expect several people out in The Bush on The Spring Hunt have had to be brought back to Moose Factory by chopper. Their camps have been flooded out. Once or twice a day now the Moose Factory Volunteer Fire Department/Search and Rescue is running chopper flights to assess the level of threat to the Moose Factory community. I’ve been surprised by the fact that there still are rivers feeding The Moose that are still holding on to their ice packs. Not all of them are open. But many are. Maybe most. I still think that while we may see lots more ice, The River has already crested.

There was a steel railing along The River’s edge behind the Eco-Lodge. The ice simply removed it.

4:30 PM

This afternoon there still is plenty of ice out there on the east side of The Island — in front of The Rectory where I live. Some of the floating piles are 50-60 feet high (above the surface of the water.) But the general level of The River seems to be a foot or so below what it was at this time yesterday.

I learned that The River crested last night at 9:30 PM. That was the critical moment. The water level had been creeping up all day, it seemed. At the Hospital docks the water actually did get up to the Hospital maintenance buildings. But it got no further. Sometime about then an ice jam (and dam) around Shipsand Island broke free. That released the pressure — or started to.

Also, I’m told that many of the rivers feeding The Moose are now running open and free, whereas only a day or so ago, they were clogged. That means that there is a diminishing amount of ice coming down on us. The troops will keep watch, however, until they KNOW we’re safe.

This is the most dramatic it’s been in years. In many years the ice just gets soft and disappears, quietly, in the middle of the night. Not this year!

1:30 AM
It’s been warm the past day or so. Yesterday we saw clear skies with high 40’s getting maybe into the low 50’s — Fahrenheit. Right now it’s down to 28 degrees — at 1:30 AM. I just got a phone call from Anne warning me about The River.

Yesterday people were calling from the south — wondering if we were having any flooding. The only thing I had heard was that people were worried about the Chapleau area. No one in Moose Factory was worried about Moose Factory.

I guess the people down south knew something we didn’t. Or I wasn’t talking to the right people.

The water is now just about up to the road in front of my house. It hasn’t covered the road. But the road is blocked off to traffic. I could move the car now if I wanted to. But I have no idea of what is really safe on this island when The River floods — as it does, from time to time — and as it might now, any minute.

The Moose in flood is humbling. It’s over a mile wide in front of my house. That’s on the east side of The Island. To the west of Moose Factory Island is about as much River. Then the town of Moosonee.

So, The River is wide. And we’re only 5-10 miles from the open water of The Bay. What’s happening? The spring flood has brought down lots of ice. That now is jamming up against the ice pack still on The Bay and maybe some of the islands between us and The Bay. And it’s making an ice dam.

To get as high as my road The River has to rise 30 feet — which it just did — tonight.

Now, of course, everybody wants to know how much farther the flood will go. I’ve heard nothing.

7:00 AM
The River is down five feet. Temperature is hanging at 30 degrees. Dawn broke around 6 AM. We’ll see.

The road between me and the Quickstop is still closed to traffic. A mountain of ice was deposited onto the road — right by the Quickstop, right in front of Emily’s house. On The River’s bank, in front of the Rectory, it looks as though the high water came within two feet of flooding the road. People are saying that’s it for the spring/year. The River crested. They may be right.

The drama started at The French River which enters The Moose ten or fifteen miles upstream from here, at The Old Reserve. The Moose had got itself blocked at that intersection. Evidently the ice dam broke loose last night, and released the torrent of water and ice. Theoretically the same thing could happen again at the mouth of The Moose — that is, on the islands between us and The Bay. But, already, the water is much lower, and the ice has become much less bunched up.

When the conditions are just right — or just wrong — the ice piles up on itself, making conglomerated icebergs that tower over everything else. When these ‘icebergs’ get too congested, they start to crowd up on each other. Then they can make islands or walls or dams. The force of the current locks them into place. And, BINGO! We have a dam.

2:30 PM
We’re not out of this yet. Another ice dam has formed on the Moosonee side of The Island. The water on that side of The Island is coming back UP-River around through ‘the gutway’ — a passage between two islands between here and Moosonee. If that starts to happen on my side — the east side — then we’ll get flooding. The problem now is that The Bay is so filled with ice that the ice from The River has nowhere to go — except to pile up on itself and then block everything.

3:30 PM
I’m told that evacuation has started at Kashechewan. And evacuation is being talked about at Moose Factory. If we get evacuated, it all will have to be done by chopper. That means that the last of us will be out by Labour Day…! Maybe only the Hospital patients and Elders will get moved — if it actually comes to pass. Some of the people on my stretch of Front Street were evacuated from their homes last night. Either I never heard about it or no one thought to come running for me or I slept through the phone and/or pounding on the door. Anyway, I’m still here.

And the water is rising again.