10-foot snowbank encases Sask. family’s wellhouse after windy weekend

A family in Lampman is ready to see winter go.

Danielle Fleury spent an hour and a half last week shovelling massive snowdrifts on her and her husband’s property while her husband used their Bobcat to help clear what snow they could.

She said a drift of 10 to 11 feet formed over their wellhouse — which they use to water their horses — and encased the building in wet, heavy snow. The drift also covered the trailer behind their wellhouse.

“The wind came up last weekend and it blew and blew and blew and it made some pretty massive snowbanks,” Fleury said. “We couldn’t get into the wellhouse at all.”

Photos show the snow was packed tightly and flush to the sides of the building, right up against the doorway of the wellhouse.

Snow packed around the Fleurys’ wellhouse in Lampman. (Danielle Fleury/Facebook)

They were eventually able to clear just enough of the snow to reach their trailer and back it in to fill their water tank. Their house wasn’t quite as affected, with drifts only about four feet high covering their basement windows and dryer vents.

“We kind of climbed over the snowbanks,” Fleury said.

Before last weekend, Fleury’s entire yard had already been covered in four-foot drifts.

She said she has only seen snow like this once before, when they couldn’t access their shed to get their Bobcat out because of the incredible snow drifts.

That was in March 2017.

“When we did get it out, the snowdrift, I think, was about five feet above the Bobcat, so we kind of made a trench just to get out,” Fleury laughed. “The overhang was impressive!”

Now, Fleury and her husband are hoping for a slow spring melt and are prepared to see their dugouts and pastures waterlogged come spring.

“We’re so dry that I think the groundwater level is OK and our yard is pretty sloped so that it all goes to the dugout and the pasture,” Fleury said when asked about potential flooding.

But they’re more fearful of wet and heavy snow continuing to pack down on their property.

“We are so done. My husband has spent hours and hours and hours in the Bobcat,” she said with a laugh. “We’d like to see each other in the evening.”

Lampman is about a 30-minute drive northeast of Estevan.

Snow packed around the Fleurys’ wellhouse in Lampman. (Danielle Fleury/Facebook)