On the evening of June 19, Exshaw resident Claude Leger went to bed to the sound of boulders crashing against one another as they were moved along by a rising Exshaw Creek.
“When I went to bed it was around 11:30 at night and I had been hearing the boulders rolling around in the creek like bowling balls and it was rainy and it was one of those rains where the wind was slapping the water against the house and the windows,” Leger said. “I went to bed and laying in bed I could still hear the boulders in the creek and was thinking that doesn’t sound right.”
When he got out of bed in the morning, the seven-year-resident of Exshaw was greeted by the sight of brown water flowing past the driveway of his home on Mount Lorette Drive.
As his house was secure, Leger reached out to his neighbours to offer his help, despite the fact that his physiotherapist, just the day before, had told him to rest his shoulder after tearing muscles while canoeing.
Leger joined a group of residents fighting to keep the floodwater off Wind Ridge Road.
“We worked on that street all day, about a dozen of us. I went looking for stuff to work with and the water was running down that road.”
They found some large 6 x 6 timbers, each about 14 feet long, in the backyard of builder Jeff Williams.
“We got a truck and trailer and hauled them to the road and used them as deflectors. We eventually found a loader down the road and asked the guy ‘can you give us two minutes?’ With a load of gravel we were able to secure it. It was such great teamwork and everybody was so keen to get the water to go somewhere else. That was that day,” Leger said.
The next day, Friday, June 21, Leger went down the street to check on one of his neighbours to see if he was safe.
“I wanted to see if he was OK. I don’t know him very well. I had seen his car on the road, but I hadn’t seen him, so I went to check on him.”
When he got there, Leger realized he couldn’t reach the house. It had become an island surrounded by water about 300 feet across. He returned home and with his canoe still on the roof of his van, drove back to the house.
“I paddled across and found him in the house and asked him if he was OK. He said ‘yeah’ but he was shook up.” Leger saw that the man had a wood burning stove, so he left to bring him some wood.
After stoking the fire, Leger took a walk around the house and discovered a three foot wide creek flowing across the yard and gouging the ground out along the foundation.
“(I said) this can’t go on. We’ve got to stop this. I got shovels and a pick and my girlfriend. We paddled back to his house and worked all day diverting water. I’m pretty sure we saved his house. He got water in his basement, but it was clean water.”
That was the end of day two.
On the third day, Leger finally took his physiotherapist’s advice and took it easy – sort of.
As heavy equipment and utility company personnel tried to restore services, Leger set up a stand in his driveway and served coffee, chocolate and juice.
“That was my way of showing up,” he said, laughing.
Leger finally returned to work at his Canmore store Tuesday (June 25) and as he drove down Windridge Road past the condo complex he said he watched volunteers helping clear the thick mud from around the buildings.
“And there’s Jeff (Caskenette of Canmore) with buckets and he’s covered from head to toe in mud and stuff and he’s grinning (and) cheering everybody on. Man, it brings tears to my eyes.”
While Leger is happy to see volunteers from other communities helping his neighbours, he’s also pleased Exshaw had the chance to work through the flooding on its own, as he got to see Exshaw at its finest.
“That’s people coming together. I haven’t heard one person whine. I haven’t heard ‘poor me’ and people just rolled up their sleeves and said ‘lets get at ‘er.’ It’s beautiful.”
And for now, as Exshaw residents work to restore their community, Leger said it’s one day at a time, but he believes the future for this hamlet is promising.
The spirit he saw in people and their willingness to lend a hand has opened the community and connecting its residents in the way only adversity can. For starters, it has neighbours breaking through busy lives to create bonds.
“We’re all hard working people. We’re really – and its weird, in all the years I’ve been here – I hardly knew my neighbours because were all busy doing what we do and everybody has got to work,” Leger said.
“I feel when I come to Exshaw I come to the cottage. I come home and it is to rest and be quiet. We all do the same thing, all my neighbours, and we mind our own business, but man, when the shit hits the fan, we’re out there!”
Along with bringing neighbours togehter, the flood, Leger said, has also opened the door to building a better relationship with the community’s largest neighbour: Lafarge.
It’s been a difficult relationship lately; some say at the lowest point they’ve seen in many years. But when the flood began and the MD turned to the cement manufacturing company for help, asking for a front-end loader, Lafarge offered two loaders and four quarry haul trucks, which dumped nearly 30,000 tonnes of rock along Exshaw Creek to help stem the spread of water.
As a result, Leger sees the possibility for good things with more trust between residents and Lafarge.
“I think this is really going to bring us together. It is going to open up the communication and trust that we had totally lost with Lafarge. I think we’re going to start from the ground up. I think this will really change. It was good for Lafarge and good for us to work together.”
And, he’s thinking, once some of the mess is cleaned up, a party will be in order for Exshaw to give everyone a chance to reconnect and blow off steam.
“I’m thinking small businesses could put in some money and make it a really good party and get people to talk with each other,” he said.
It will also be a time to reflect on the potential of small, rural communities like Exshaw which, when they are brought together through adversity, in the end, become much stronger.
“When we found out we were disconnected from the rest of the world I thought wow, we’re all on our own. It was a really weird feeling,” Leger said. “We did this on our own, because nobody else could reach us and we couldn’t reach anyone else and we can stand on our own two feet and that’s something to be proud of. That’s who we are. We’re tough.”
As to his shoulder, Leger said he plans to follow his physiotherapist’s advice and take it easy, pending any natural disasters, of course, in which case, you’ll find him right back out there with the rest of his community.
“I’m going to really take it easy. I promised,” he said laughing.
