After the flood: First Nations along B.C.'s Highway 8 work on recovery from disaster and trauma

Chief Arnie Lampreau of the Shackan Indian Band looks across the Nicola River that surged in November, pulling entire homes into its current and forcing residents to flee.

Above its banks, the charred remains of yellow pines cover the mountains like burnt matchsticks — relics of a wildfire that roared across the landscape just months earlier.

Lampreau grew up in the area along Highway 8 between Spences Bridge and Merritt, B.C., and said he can't help but think of the lush forests that once blanketed the hills.

"We won't see that forest back, not in my lifetime,'' he said.

"The whole scene of our existence in Shackan, it is changed forever.''

Lampreau now thinks in terms of a "before and after,'' he said, and is questioning whether it may be time to move to new, safer land. The Shackan community hasn't had a chance to prepare for the spring thaw, he said, and future extreme weather events are a constant worry.

"We haven't even had time to exhale,'' he said.

The First Nation and its members are among several communities and individuals grappling with difficult questions about how best to rebuild after evacuating twice last year due to disasters that the government has linked to climate change.

They are doing so in the wake of consecutive traumas that have included losing loved ones to the COVID-19 pandemic, the discovery of unmarked children's graves at residential schools, a searing heat wave, destructive wildfires and floods.

For some, moving forward means working to restore the highway that they say is not only a transport route but the connective tissue of community.

For others who remain out of their homes almost five months after the flooding, it means finally returning. And for Lampreau, who is among them, it means looking to new land where the threat of disaster feels less imminent.

While attention and emergency resources tend to be concentrated around the disasters themselves, some of their impacts aren't felt until months or years later. Many of those who lived along Highway 8 say they're still very much in the thick of it.

Here are some of the stories of those people and their communities:

When storms known as atmospheric rivers poured over southern British Columbia in November 2021, the effects were catastrophic. Rivers spilled over dikes onto farmland in Abbotsford and fatal mudslides swept vehicles off Highway 99.