Landslides, cut off again, and Fiona

It poured rain overnight on Wednesday, which caused several landslides south of Dawson City yesterday. The road first closed just south of the Dempster turn off, due to landslides. Then there were more landslides closer to town, between Rock Creek and Henderson, closing the road, and taking out a power pole. Then Hunker Creek closed the highway between town at the airport as the water started going over the highway.

Many people who work in town live in Henderson so last evening they went home by helicopter!

While we were walking Hank last night along the river, we kept hearing rocks smashing into the water, like someone was throwing them. We didn’t realize at the time it was the slope on the far side of the river, also shedding some rocks and mud into the river – for hours!

We’ve got new monitoring on the Moosehide Slide on the north end of town because there has been recent movement there and .. lets just say we’re glad to live in the south end of town should that thing ever go. More about that here – https://www.whitehorsestar.com/News/moosehide-slide-s-potential-dangers-under-scrutiny

So we’re kinda cut off again. People can’t get to Dawson City, or out of Dawson City. We’ve had a friend from a few hours south of here staying with us this week while he works in the area. Guess he’s stuck here until the highway re-opens!

While we were getting all the rain, the Dempster was getting snow. Here’s the view at kilometre 97 yesterday at a 12:30 in the afternoon:

Most of my attention is on Nova Scotia while watching Hurricane Fiona head towards our former home. For a couple days the path was headed right towards where we used to live. The track has shifted a bit east this morning, but it doesn’t much matter, the impact is going to be significant across eastern Nova Scotia. Fiona is back up to a Cat 4 right now, and it is due to arrive within 24 hours. There’s no doubt anymore this is going to be bigger than any of the storms we lived through there. I’ll be glued to updates from Nova Scotia as it pulls through. Be safe everyone!

Here are a few photos from a few days ago when it wasn’t raining:

Most of the leaves are off now with the wind and rain. We’ll be resuming work on growing our woodpile this weekend!