It is at times likes this I feel the need to wrap my arms around the little town of High River. You see my family has been a part of this town since its first days. My great-grandfather, Bill Holmes, took the train to the end of the tracks in Regina and then walked the rest of the way to “The Crossing” which later became High River. My grandfather, Bill Holmes, was the first non-aboriginal male born in High River and my dad, Bill Holmes, grew up here and ran the High River Times and with my mom raised my brother, Bill Holmes, and myself here. We are both raising our families here.
So aside from demonstrating my family is not that creative when it comes to naming kids, I wanted to show that a family has managed to live through every single flood the history of our town has written about. We have floated boatrs by downtown businesses owned by us, mourned the loss of friends taken by the Highwood, and we have cleaned up the streets and rebuilt homes and told tales of the floods from days gone by. . . and we never left.
You see you can move to High River for its quaint downtown and beautiful trees and view of the mountains, but you have to love it for its determined strength. That comes from the people.
The face of High River has changed many times throughout history and will now again, but the spirit of High River is always there.
I know we are wounded and in shock and so sad and that is okay, but anger is not what we need to heal.
What I hope you won’t do is listen to is those who think Mother Nature is an elected member of the government. The fact is, when there is a lot of snow in the mountains and it also rains in the spring too much water comes down our way too fast. Mother Nature did try to protect our town by installing natural flood plains, which would historically fill, and even spill a little, when the river got too full. But some people needed to build houses or roads there and then build walls to ensure the river didn’t come into those areas and that is human nature. The fact is a cup of water is a cup of water and if the water comes up and you pour a pitcher’s worth into a Dixie cup it is going to spill at your end or mine or in a neighbouring town. It has to go somewhere. There is no vote that stops that. We just need some new flood plains or diversions to replace those we took away.
What I hope you won’t do is decide to rally the people and fight “the man” over it to ease your personal suffering.
Developmentally, perhaps some choices have been made by some landowners that our forefathers would have cautioned against, but that is water under (or over) the bridge now.
What we need to do now is draw on that pioneer spirit that made our town great.
Support our neighbours and our officials and get our town back on its feet again.
You are not fighting the court of law, you are fighting the law of nature and in High River that is reality.
So, if you love High River, then really love High River, and if you don’t then maybe try High Prairie — I am sure its lovely and it sounds high and dry there.
Thanks you to all who have spent massive number of hours already to get us moving in the right direction and for all our neighbouring towns who have embraced us because this is still my town and I love it.
