Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Farm among properties flooded near Dawson City, Yukon

People in the Yukon’s Klondike River valley have been battling floodwaters all week, including at the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Farm near Dawson City. 

Derrick Hastings, the farm’s manager, said things happened quickly. The farm had been preparing as ice jams on the Klondike caused flooding in nearby Rock Creek and Henderson Corner, where Hastings lives.

Hastings said things were still looking good at the farm on Thursday morning.

“We had put in dike systems, drainage, and ditching,” he said. “We thought that we had it beat.”

Then at around 4:30 p.m. that day, Hastings got a call telling him that the farm was beginning to flood.

“I went there and we started moving vehicles to higher ground,” he said. “We brought in an excavator to shore up our existing dike system. It was working — to a certain extent.”

After the vehicles were moved, Hastings said the focus turned to the livestock. He and his wife piled sandbags around the chicken coops and pig pens. He said they both stayed around to monitor the situation into the evening. 

“Around 12 o’clock at night we were still working, and then it just came in like I’ve never seen,” he said. “I’ve seen it flood a couple times there, but this was a substantial volume. Like, it broke the dike and …overwhelmed the whole site.”

Hastings said the roadway into the farm was soon completely underwater. Still, he kept moving things to higher ground and sandbagging.

By about 1 a.m., Hastings’ wife wanted to go home but there was too much water on the roadway into the farm. Hastings said he called the local RCMP and they brought in an excavator to carry her to dry ground in the bucket.

Hastings stayed on and kept working until 4 a.m. and then managed to sleep for a few hours. When he woke he called local officials to let them know how things had developed at the farm.

“I started feeding the animals,” he said. “And making sure they’re not all overwhelmed with the water, you know. I just laid them out with some feed for the next 24 hours so that I could also get evacuated out of there,” he said.

Tactical evacuation

On Friday afternoon a large ice jam upriver from the farm released, sending down a rush of water and ice.

Residents of the Rock Creek subdivision were advised to evacuate the area as the floodwaters were expected to quickly rise again.

For Hastings, the farm’s livestock are a concern.

“Chickens, they’re easy to move around. You can put them into cages and get them out of there quick. Rabbits, you can put them into little travel cages and they’re gone. But pigs, when they’re 200-plus pounds, if they don’t want to go they’re not easy to get going where you want them to go.”

“The intention is never to put them at risk,” he told CBC News. “You do your preparation. I thought we put enough ditching and whatnot in place, but this amount of water, you can’t stop this.”

Jim Regimbal is the northern area superintendent for Yukon’s department of Highways and Public Works. He’s also the designated information officer for the Klondike Valley’s flood response. He said Friday that officials were monitoring the situation in the Rock Creek subdivision and surrounding areas, including the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Farm.

Regimbal said he couldn’t give a timeline as to when the water might start going down, but he did say that there were already signs on Friday of the water slowly dropping in Rock Creek. 

“Still be vigilant,” he warned residents. “Take care of your neighbours. Make sure you have a kit ready in case you do have to leave the house.”