One person holding her breath for when the Chilcotin River breaks through the landslide at Riske Creek is the owner of a ranch located just six kilometers downstream.
Jane Eagle of the historic Wineglass Ranch said she was reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss Saturday morning as it seemed appropriate.
Due to the evacuation order for properties along the river that went into place Wednesday, July 31, just hours after the slide, she is not at the ranch.
“We have no idea what’s going to happen this time,” she said. “It’s illegal to go down there and it’s very dangerous so I hope people stay out.”
On Friday evening, she returned to the ranch with a crew to haul her cattle in an emergency livestock trailer up to a meadow on higher ground.
"We got out safely with the help of a BC Wildfire helicopter to reassure us when we were in the flood plain," she said. "All animals and humans are away from the river."
Eagle is no stranger to the power of the Chilcotin River.
In 2019, Big Creek collapsed into the Chilcotin River about two kilometres upstream from the Wineglass Ranch.
“They figure there was about 400 cubic metres of rubble that went into the river from Big Creek and then the river levels came up to 1,300 cubic metres per second,” she recalled. "It was unprecedented."
"When you look at satellite photographs now you see the green River Ranch upstream from me and Wineglass Ranch looks like it isn't even running because we haven’t had water there since.”
Some irrigation has been attempted pumping with diesel, but the it is very costly.
Eagle said she has received no acknowledgement from government since the 2019 flooding.
”We were an individual property, I appealed it and hired a company to go to all the ministers for me but we weren’t in sight.”
Additionally, during the heat dome in 2021, the ranch lost more land and some buildings close to the river had to be taken out.
When she was down by the river helping round up and move her cattle Friday evening, she saw water was flowing in the river as it is coming from Big Creek.
She said it smelled damp from the river bottom, but did not smell like fish.
“I hope the fish are staying out the of the way,” she said. There were a fair number of trout, but I did not see eagles. There should be eagles everywhere right now.”
