Lake Manitoba rancher's flood struggle ongoing

Most of Arvid Nottveit's 10,000-acre ranch is a swamp. It's situated on the tip of Peonan Point, a peninsula that stretches into Lake Manitoba.

More than 500 cattle grazed the pastures here before last year's flood.

Today, beaver dams and muskrat houses dominate the landscape. The pasture land is still underwater. Cattails are growing.

The ground is spongy and the air smells like algae. Rub your foot on the ground and the green stuff is uncovered.

"Kinda reminds you of the seashore," Nottveit said as he walks along the pasture fence.

Manitoba's flood of 2011 isn't over for Nottveit and other cattle ranchers in the province's Interlake region.

"Oh, it probably won't be over until 2016 or 2017," he said.

Nottveit estimates that's how long it could take for the land to recover so the cattle can return.

Once the water goes, he will have to clear the cattails. Cattle don't eat them.

'Starting over'

Nottveit will then have to re-seed so grass can grow and he can produce hay. Then there's the job of rebuilding 22 kilometres of fence.

"We're essentially starting over. We had a functional viable ranch that was the way we liked it," he said.

"Now we're actually starting over again, so that's kind of discouraging. And I don't know, really, how long it's going to take to get it back to where it was."

Until the flood, the ranch supported four families. Some of Nottveit's in-laws lived there too. But they've since moved away, forced to leave and get other jobs to support their families.

Nottveit has decided to stick it out. He and his family fled the farm during the flood last May, but it took him until this past Valentine's Day to move all the cattle.

He spent the winter travelling over ice to feed those left behind. He then sold half the herd. The remaining cattle graze on rented pasture land an hour away near Hilbre, Man.

With his five children away at school, Nottveit and his wife moved to Steep Rock, Man., to be close to the herd.

Manitoba's flood compensation program helped keep his business afloat.

"They provided money so I could pay for rented pasture. They provided money so I could provide hay that I couldn't produce here," he said.

"But really, we have no type of assurance that this type of catastrophe won't happen again."

Many in the Interlake, from First Nations to cattle ranchers, are calling on the province to create another outlet in Lake Manitoba to lower its levels.

The Manitoba government built a $100-million emergency channel to drain flood water from both Lake Manitoba and nearby Lake St. Martin.

Flood channel not enough, some say

The channel, which opened in November, was intended to lower levels throughout the winter by channeling excess water into Lake Winnipeg.

However, many who live around Lake Manitoba say the 6-kilometre-long channel isn't enough.

"There's no way to avoid this from happening again if we have climate change and extreme weather like they're predicting and we have more floods," said Caron Clarke, a rancher who sits on the Lake Manitoba Rehabilitation Committee.

"This could happen again, and the only way to really ensure that the lake levels can be regulated is to have an outlet that can do that."

Clarke added that there was not enough in the province's 2012 budget to help cattle producers get through another tough year.

"The ranchers need production-loss compensation for pasture, and hay land and crop land. The hay fields and the pastures are totally unproductive," she said.

"The losses are probably greater this year than last year. Last year, ranchers could graze down into the water as the water was rising. This year that ground is bare. It's black. There's nothing there except for goose tracks."

Nottveit knows the task of rebuilding his ranch is daunting. It utterly overwhelms him. What's more, he will have to do it and take care of his herd at the same time.

But when asked why he just doesn't give up and pack it in, the 50-year-old's eyes well up and he goes silent.

He said he's determined to return one day to the white ranch house that overlooks the lake.

"I guess I got hopes and dreams that haven't been realized yet, and I suppose this is just a delay in that process," he said.

"It might be three or four years, it might be 10 years, but there will be something here worth working for and living on eventually I hope."