A farm family from northwestern Saskatchewan lost more than it bargained for when it sold land to a neighbouring village 34 years ago.
The family is now losing hope that it will ever regain use of its land.
The dispute began in 1977 when Dale and Lynda Chibri sold some of their land to the village of Neilburg to build a dugout.
However, the Chibris say they thought they were selling the village two or three acres, when the deal actually involved 11 acres.
“We tried to do the town a favour 35 years ago to solve their water problems,” Dale said.
Read Also
Russian wheat exports start to pick up the pace
Russia has had a slow start for its 2025-26 wheat export program, but the pace is starting to pick up and that is a bearish factor for prices.
“They took more land than we knew. Only our own fault. We were naive when we signed the papers. It just said 600 by 800 feet. It was originally supposed to be two to three acres to do this dugout.”
The village built and fenced a two-acre dugout, which it used until it updated and relocated its water supply system in the 1990s.
“They said the rest go ahead and graze it and enjoy it, but then again it was a good old handshake and us being naive on some of this documentation, we should have picked up on them taking this much land.”
The problem surfaced when the land surrounding the dugout began to flood, swamping the corrals the Chibris had built and coming close to the house.
The village responded last year by asking the family to remove its corrals and shelters so that it could expand the retaining pond and build a berm.
Village administrator Janet Black said officials conducted a land survey in 2007 following initial reports of flooding and discovered that some of the Chibri infrastructure is on village property. Black said further complaints of flooding by Chibri forced council to act.
“That’s when the village said, ‘OK, let’s go forward and do something to alleviate this.’ We asked him to move his property off of our land so that we can build a detention pond.”
She said a contractor will soon be ready to start excavating the 11 acres to build the pond, which will be banked to keep water on village property.
Black said the village has explored all options and ideas.
“Council is trying to do what’s best for the ratepayers involved. We’re sorry that he built where he did but the fact is he’s squatting on our land.”
The Chibris took the village to court, and a ruling is pending.
However, they aren’t hopeful that the judge will rule in their favour and expect to soon lose access to the cow sheds, corrals and fencing they’ve built for their purebred cattle business.
In the meantime, they say they solved this spring’s flooding by using an established culvert system.
