Gerry Angell’s business usually booms in the summer. Now he’s literally trying to stay above water.
Angell, who runs Angell’s Marina on Amisk Lake in Denare Beach, is dealing with abnormally high water levels that have flooded part of his business.
Last week he was wearing rubber boots to get around his marina shop, which is usually three feet above the water line. The floor was at least a foot underwater.
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Angell.
Angell had laid wooden pallets and two-by-fours on the ground to make moving from place to place easier, but almost all of them had sunk beneath the surface. He estimates the water is as much as four feet higher than normal.
He points out of his shop’s door at a pair of submerged stairs, explaining how the area at the bottom is usually high and dry.
“I’ve got steps going down to sand on a normal year,” Angell said. “The kids play and make sandcastles there, lay down and suntan, put an umbrella up and enjoy some beach time down there.”
The area he was referring to was so far underwater that it was barely visible.
The marina wasn’t the only area to be impacted by high water levels. At Denare Beach’s Main Beach, the beach itself had almost disappeared.
During most summers, more than 30 feet of sand is visible between Amisk Lake and a retaining wall. Last week, about six inches of sand could be seen in some areas.
“At our Main Beach, we don’t really have a beach. The water is at the retaining wall,” said Crystal Banting, recreation director for the village. “I know I wasn’t in Denare the last time it’s been this high. It has happened in the past, but it’s very rare.”
Elsewhere, a number of boathouses on the shore of Amisk Lake had sunk too far into the water to be accessed. At least two had been partially destroyed by high water and waves.
“I know there are boathouses around the marina that people can’t get to because the water is so high,” said Banting.
“It’s been a safety issue for boaters. Our normal reefs that peak above the water are now sitting below it. Everybody’s going a little bit slower.”
Some residents in Denare Beach have reported flooding on their properties, along with residents on other northern lakes in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Some homes, cabins and businesses along Jan Lake, Deschambault Lake and Big Island Lake have experienced flooded yards, docks and basements.
An official with the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency pinned the blame for the high water on heavy rainfall over the past two months, calling it a “one-in-50-year event.”
Some locals have other ideas. Angell cites a confluence of the Churchill and Sturgeon Weir rivers. Normally the two rivers don’t physically meet, but due to rain and heavy snowmelt, he said they have combined at Frog Portage, about 100 km northwest of Denare Beach.
“We’ve had water fluctuations, but not like this,” said Angell. “When we get the Churchill overflowing into this system, if it flows through for any length of time, that’s when we have real problems. That’s when the water really comes up.”
Angell hasn’t seen flooding like this in more than 30 years. The last time water was at this height at his marina, his main building needed extensive renovations.
“At that time, I had to rebuild part of it. You get water into your floor, the tiles get unglued. We had to tear up the floor, repaint, all the good stuff you have to do after a flood,” he said.
Angell has taken fewer bookings for the summer. His business is still open, but things are going at a much slower pace.
“We don’t have the people coming in that we usually have,” he said. “A lot of it has to do with people seeing we’re in a flood stage and going, ‘I guess we’ll go somewhere else for vacation this year.’ We’re down for July here anyway. I kind of expected it was going to be miserable here. I knew I was going to have my hands full with high water.”
