150-year-old graves at risk as North Thompson River swallows pasture

Three historic graves are nearing the riverbank as a pasture caves into the North Thompson River.

Wendy Robertson has lived on her Kamloops farm for roughly 30 years. She's lost land to the river three times since then, but last week was the largest chunk it's taken so far, she said.

"It's just devastating," she said, as she recalled finding the massive chunk of fallen land one morning last week.

When the ridge gave way, it cut her property line back a few metres, but there are several more cracks in the silty ground. She expects more will fall in the coming days.

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As the banks continue to fall into the river, the edge is nearing three old graves that she's tended to since she and her husband moved in.

Her husband, who has since died, built a fence around the graves and periodically trimmed the grass around the headstones.

They date back to the 1870s. The headstones say a man died in his 30s, while two young girls were four and 12, respectively.

Robertson doesn't doesn't know the history of the families who lived on the property in the decades before, nor how the three graves are connected to the land, but they have maintained the graves.

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Chunks of pasture fallen into the river leave about 30 metres from the graves to the edge.

The most impacted part of her land is slightly up river, where pieces of wooden fencing and irrigation pipes protrude from the silt, along with a lawn chair from which Robertson would look out on the valley.

After twice moving her fence back from the falling banks over the years, she's not sure what she'll do to combat the erosion. Robertson said she tried in years past to rip rap the banks, but she was denied by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

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Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson said it's not a municipal issue, unlike the failed attempts to combat erosion around the Noble Creek irrigation system, just a few kilometres north.

"I'm not going to let this go," he said to Robertson before leaving the farm.

He's looking to higher levels of government for help, suggesting the province or the federal government may want to work on the banks in order to protect fish habitats.

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