We purchased out small acreage in Yarrow back in the early summer of 2003. It was the perfect opportunity to live in the centre of a small, friendly community, surrounded by farmland and beautiful mountain views. Here was enough land to build our dream shop and eventually a house to match. We fully understood the property was behind a dike and in a floodplain. But we weren’t worried for we had a plan. The land we bought was on the very edge of what was once Sumas Lake. It was the highest land in the town. Then we hired large earth moving machines to push the rich topsoil to the side and brought in hundreds of loads of gravel. This was carefully tamped into place under the watchful eye of an engineer. We raised the rear of our property by approximately three feet. We built a sturdy concrete wall around the property and proper drainage to take care of surface water without impacting our neighbours. Only then could we begin construction of our new shop. We made do for the next ten years in the old rickety farm house which had been constructed just after the lake had been drained in the 1920’s. There were problems with the original house. Each time we had a heavy rain the basement would spring a thousand leaks, often more than the sump pump could handle. We wore boots when we went to the basement. But the day came when we could finally build our dream house. Once again we scooped up all of the rich topsoil, digging to a depth of five feet in places. Then we again hauled in hundreds of loads of clean, coarse gravel and packed it into place until the floor of our house was five feet above the original grade. Then we built our house, all of insulated concrete. There would be no basement or even a crawlspace to gather water. Over the next few years we raised the remainder of our property to ensure there would be no issues when heavy rains came and water threatened our community. This is how we sleep soundly at night without worry.
