DAWSON CITY – The Yukon government’s response to last May’s severe flooding in the Klondike region was late in coming – and insufficient, residents say.

The May 8 and May 24 flooding affected homes, roads and highways. One woman endured 36 hours without any help, and suffered substantial property losses.

Impacted communities and subdivisions in the Klondike Valley included Bear Creek, Dawson City (including Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in/C4, Dredge Pond subdivisions), Henderson Corner and Rock Creek.

The government contracted Stantec, a Whitehorse-based engineering and environmental consulting firm, to report on the issue. The first of several meetings to engage with residents on the issue was held early Tuesday evening at the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Community Hall

The problem with this plan was that it was -40 to -45 C that day and most of the people who really needed to be met with live 20 minutes to half an hour from the meeting place.

As a result, there were only nine actual people in the hall for the meeting. Fortunately, there was a late-in-the-day decision to Zoom the meeting and 30 people signed up for that.

They included a few from the government who wisely kept a low profile and allowed Stantec’s Zoe Morrison to absorb much of the anger that was a strong component of the two-hour meeting.

In fairness, Morrison noted that government officials had been told that this was a session for listening to residents, not for the government to offer comments.

There was a list of potential discussion questions displayed on a screen at the front of the hall.

Under “Risk”, people were asked to consider: “What did the YG do to inform the community of the risk?” and “What (better to write “How”) could communication be improved?”

The general tone of the responses was that the government failed to do enough in either category.

Under “Preparedness”, the questions were “What steps were taken to prepare for the floods?” and “What would you do differently next year?”

Attendees did not feel much had been done to prepare and that there needed to be a lot of planning and co-ordinating done before this year’s likely high water event.

The final category was ”Response”, asking, “What support did you receive?” and “Was the support sufficient?”

There was a general feeling that the support was slow to materialize and, in many cases, did not address the situation on the ground with much understanding.

Canadian Ranger John Mitchell, who found out about this meeting almost by accident, was the first to unload his detailed concerns.

He described the lack of co-ordination of all the many agencies that need to co-operate as being like a table top covered with dinner plates that touch only fractionally.

Agencies involved should include the territorial government, the City of Dawson, the Rangers, EMS, Wildland Fire Management and the RCMP, Mitchell said.

“There are a lot of gaps that need to be filled,” he added.

In cases where the government isn’t clear, the town needs to be yapping at it for answers, like an annoying little puppy, he said.

For the promotion of the meeting, communication had been awful.

Many people only found out because a neighbour had contacted them – and nearly everyone was wondering why, at -45, it hadn’t been postponed.

Several others at the meeting pointed out that there doesn’t seem to be a good record of who lives where in Dawson’s perimeter and outside the town boundary.

Mitchell said there will be more than floods to worry about in the coming years.

He anticipates more slides, like the half-dozen that shut down the North Klondike Highway near Rock Creek in the fall of 2022; like the ones that often happen near the Dempster Corner; and like the flood/slide that closed the bridge at Clear Creek last September.

“The water flow is constantly changing, and we saw water last March where we hadn’t seen in before,” Mitchell pointed out.

For all of these things, there needs to be planning and co-ordination, he said. The fact that this meeting was being held a full eight months after the crisis – and fewer than four months before it could happen again – is not a good sign.

Most of the comments came from people attending on Zoom who live in the Dredge Pond, Bear Creek, Rock Creek, and Henderson areas.

They found it was not clear who to contact during the crisis.

When they spoke to officials in the capital, the response was too often flippant, made by people who had no idea what the conditions were here.

Those folks seemed to assume that the situation was what one should expect when living in the rural area so far from the city, the meeting heard.

One of the saddest stories came from Jessica Pomphrey, who drove 14 hours to attend the meeting.

Pomphrey, who owns what was formerly the very successful Vogt Farm, had her house and all her greenhouses and farmland destroyed by the rising waters.

She currently lives in Tagish, but felt it important to attend the meeting in person. During the floods, she was 36 hours without any help.

Amaris Poznikoff accused the government of being cowardly for hiding behind Stantec rather than facing residents personally, but thanked Morrison and her crew for listening.

John Lenart, who runs his orchard business on the far side of the Klondike River, has lived through many floods since he began farming there in 1986.

He said he’s amazed that there does not seem to be a guidebook nor template for handling these situations.

“I’m astounded that this is where we are now,” Lenart said.

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