Editor,
I am writing this letter in regards to the 2018 West Fraser road washout, and the Webster Lake, Garner Road detour. I wish to highlight some of my concerns, and share with you some of the struggles, that our family has encountered since the road washout.
My family and I own a cattle ranch 60 kilometres out the West Fraser Road. My husband and I purchased our division of the ranch six years ago. At the time, we were a young couple looking to start a family and the 60 kilometre drive to town on a seal-coated, well-maintained road, in a community that had a well-established elementary school, seemed like a lifestyle that would work for us. A few years later, when the elementary school was closed, our daughter was only one. We were disappointed, but the hour and a half bus ride was something that we were comfortable with for our children.
This year, when the Deep Creek Hill slid, our lives became a lot more complicated. Our daughter Echo is now five years old and just started kindergarten at the French immersion school across town. Echo gets on the bus at 6:20 in the morning and returns home around 5 p.m. The majority of this bus ride is a narrow dirt logging road, with many blind corners. When she gets home we have time for her to eat dinner, have a bath and go to bed.
I have heard people state that, “this is not the only 2.5 hour bus ride in the north.” The difference between our bus route and other long ones is that a bus has never driven on this road in the winter before, we have no clue what we will be up against come snowfall. Will the road be plowed wide enough to allow the bus and a logging truck to safely go by each other? Will it be maintained regularly? If its icy and the bus slides into a ditch, will a logging truck come barrelling around a blind corner at the wrong moment? All of these fears plague me, as a mother.
I work as a nurse five days a week in Quesnel. In order to ensure I get to work on time, I have been leaving home at 5 a.m. to be ready to start working at 7 a.m. The drive usually only takes me an hour and 20 minutes, but I feel that the road is quite unpredictable and in order to ensure I am not late for work, I leave very early. I usually have my one-year-old son with me, as he goes to daycare in town. I worry about breaking down or getting a flat tire on a road that, for the most part, does not have phone service and has very few households scattered miles apart. I often do not pass even one vehicle on my 70 kilometre drive. If I were to have car troubles on this road in the early morning, my only option would be to wait for someone to come along and help me. Chances are it would be someone that I knew, but the “what if it wasn’t?” questions always cross my mind.
We worry a lot about what this winter is going to look like for us. Will the road be plowed by 5 a.m. so I can get to work? Will the road be safe? How much longer is the bus ride going to be in the winter? The fact of the matter is, that looking at the current road situation, we can pretty much answer our own questions. No, this road is not always going to be safe. Sometimes going to town is not going to be an option. The only answer we can come up with as a family, is that the kids and I are going to have to live in town during the week. My husband has to stay out here and run the ranch, I have to be in town to work, Echo has to go to school. It is a difficult decision to make both emotionally, and financially, separating our family, but what else are we supposed to do? Maybe we hunker down and do this for this winter – it’s tough but doable. The kicker is that this is not just a one winter thing; they say the road will not even begin to be fixed until 2020.
Economically, this road washout is affecting Quesnel. This community is full of ranches, loggers, homesteaders, farmers and community members that need supplies to go about our daily lives. People shop in Williams Lake now. It’s faster and safer to get there. Fuel delivery is cheaper. The problem lies in the fact that we have all built our lives in Quesnel. Our doctors are in Quesnel, our banks, our mailing addresses. We know Quesnel and we love Quesnel, it is our town, but when a piece of farm equipment breaks down and you need a part, you pick the route that is quicker, costs less for fuel and creates less wear and tear on your vehicle.
These are just a few of my main concerns about the West Fraser road washout. We feel that 4.5 hours a day on a bus on an unpredictable road is too long for a child. We worry about our safety on this road, and whether the road will be passable every day. We are concerned about the emotional and financial impact of separating our family for the next two years. Lastly, we are concerned about the economic impact this road washout will have on our town, Quesnel. Our lives have become inherently more difficult in the last few months and from what we have been told, we are in for the long haul. I understand that studies need to be completed, that the money has to come from somewhere, and that there are protocols and procedures that need to be followed, but I ask you: if this was a highway, would it still take two years to fix?
Sincerely,
Robyn Jackson
Quesnel, B.C.