CHURCHS FERRY, North Dakota – Standing at the edge of a street that
runs past his home, Paul Christenson points out the vacant lots where
houses once stood.
“There was a house there and there and another one down the street.
There was one just across the street there, too.”
During the past two years, Christenson has watched as most of the
houses in this small village were either demolished or put on skids and
moved elsewhere.
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There are only two families remaining at Churchs Ferry. Christenson,
the village’s 44-year-old mayor and volunteer fire chief, has no plans
to move and has vowed his community will survive.
“This is my home town. This is where I went to school. It was a great
place to live when everybody was here.”
Churchs Ferry was partly the victim of rural depopulation. The local
school closed in 1988 when it “ran out of kids,” said Christenson.
But in recent years, the community’s fate has been shaped by another
force – a gigantic lake that keeps growing.
Devils Lake, a well-known fishing destination, began swelling in the
mid-1990s. It sits in a closed basin, which means water flows in but
can’t get out.
During the past few years, the lake has spread over farmland, claiming
more than 80,000 acres of deeded property.
The American federal government deemed the rising waters a threat to
the residents of Churchs Ferry. When offered compensation to move
elsewhere, most residents seized the opportunity.
“Some were sad to go,” said Christenson, who continues to run a
flourishing automotive repair shop here. “Some were jumping for joy
because they got paid big bucks.”
Farther south, near the town of Minne-waukin, Francis and Gloria
Schneider and their son, also named Francis, can reach the shores of
the lake by walking across the highway that runs past their farmyard.
There was a time when Devils Lake was 12 kilometres away.
“I knew the lake could rise, but I never in my wildest dreams thought
it could rise like this,” said the junior Schneider.
The Schneiders have lost 1,100 acres of hay and crop land to the rising
lake waters in the past six years. Pastures that used to carry cattle
are now under as much as seven metres of water. The Schneiders rent
land because of the flooding.
They were not compensated for the submerged acres. A congressman and
two senators are among those lobbying to see that changed.
“Supposedly if the land floods it goes back to the state,” the junior
Schneider said. “They become owners of it.”
From their yard, the Schneiders point out what look like islands near
the shores of the lake. The two islands used to be farm sites. The
owners were forced to leave after their fields and access roads were
claimed by water.
The town of Minnewaukin, with a population of about 400 people, is
uncertain about its future. There’s talk of building a temporary dike
if Devils Lake keeps growing.
The striking thing about this flood is that it did not hit and then
subside, like the Red River Valley flood in 1997. Instead, this flood
has been advancing in increments over several years.
“There’s so much water and it just keeps spreading out and out,” said
Gloria.
At the city of Devils Lake, a highway doubles as a dike. On the
outskirts, the dike towers higher than many of the nearby homes it was
built to protect.
The ascent of the lake forced hundreds of the city’s residents to move
or abandon their homes in the past few years. Elevation above the lake
is an important consideration for people thinking about buying building
lots.
Dennis Mertens and his brother run a dairy farm east of the city. The
dike that protects the city cuts through his farmyard next to where he
stores his hay.
“If they hadn’t built the dike, we wouldn’t even be here,” said
Mertens. “The whole city would be gone.”
The Mertens family lost a quarter section of grain land and 300 acres
of pasture to the sprawling lake. They have to rent hay land to make
enough feed for their dairy operation, which employs 13 people.
Devils Lake is now spilling into Stump Lake, an adjoining body of water
whose natural outlet is well above the current lake level.
By the time water starts escaping from Stump Lake, which would mean an
end to rising levels on Devils Lake, thousands more acres could be
under water and hundreds more homes lost.
There would also be the added expense of having to raise more roads and
repair or remove other infrastructure caught in the rising waters.
Mertens is among those who believe a manmade outlet should be created
to ease some of the flooding. He’s not sure whether that will ever
happen, partly due to concerns on the Canadian side of the border that
water from Devils Lake could contaminate the Red River and Lake
Winnipeg with unwanted fish and parasites.
Devils Lake is also a popular fishing spot for walleye, northern pike
and perch, so debate would undoubtedly ensue between fishers and
affected landowners about what an appropriate lake level would be.
“Sooner or later somebody’s going to have to give here,” said
Christenson.
In the meantime, he calculates that his home and repair shop would
still be above water even if the lake does reach its maximum level,
which could happen within a couple of years.
He admits, however, that the water then could be less than half a metre
below the level of his shop floor.
“We’ll wait and see what Mother Nature has in store. Who can predict
Mother Nature?”
