How We Live: Water on the brain

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What did you do this summer?

My answer to this perennial question: I travelled and camped and rode my bike as much as possible. And I obsessed about water.

I’ve got water on the brain these days. My preoccupation with our precious liquid resource began with an unnervingly dry spring in Calgary, coming on the heels of three years of extreme drought. Decent rains in May helped a bit, setting the stage for a green June.

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But on June 5, that infamous water main break flooded the Bowness and Montgomery neighbourhoods, plunging the city and several outlying communities into water restrictions. Most Calgarians embraced water conservation as “If it’s yellow let it mellow …” became our unofficial civic slogan.

Brief “navy” showers — shutting the water off to lather up, then turning it back on to rinse, a technique that originated on naval ships where fresh water is in short supply — stayed all summer at our house. So did using a bucket in the shower to catch water as it came up to temperature and then sprinkling it in the garden.

Like everyone else and their duck, this summer we hunted for rain barrels and bought two at a premium. If it rains, the overflow runs through hoses to a series of big plastic garbage bins, forming a crude cistern. In our new normal, a full rain barrel feels like money in the bank.

Outdoor water restrictions began easing a month later, just as extreme heat started to scorch the city. Other than sticky “honey dew” (the excrement from a nasty aphid infestation) raining down from the city’s trees and shrubs, there was almost no rain in July.

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Seeking relief from the heat, people took the waters, Calgary-style. The Bow and the Elbow became our water parks like never before. People and their panting dogs mobbed the riverbanks, hopping onto and into the rivers. (Thanks to the upside of the downside of climate change, swimming in the warmer Bow is now a thing.)

We joined the flotilla of rafts, stand-up paddleboards and wobbly unicorns in our new inflatable double kayak and paddled down the Bow, drinking in the beauty of the city as seen from the river and marvelling at its vibrant blue-green waters.

I also marvelled at the growing democratization of watercraft. A heavy, hard-sided classic canoe is no longer a must. Just pump up a SUP and go. People ply the waters with coolers, lawn chairs and pets strapped to their SUPs. Supple young women pose for selfies, smartphones fixed to the SUP deck. It’s a bona fide scene.

To further quench our thirst for water experiences, we explored lakes around central and southern Alberta. On one sweltering afternoon, as we paddled busy Two Jack Lake near Banff, we spotted a family of five on a single SUP. A young boy and his sister sat up front, a cast on the girl’s arm protected by an inflated plastic sling; in the back, mom cradled a sleeping infant on her lap; dad stood at the centre, heroically paddling the whole works.

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That day — July 22nd — sticks in my mind because it’s when the monster of a wildfire ripping through beloved Jasper National Park threatened the townsite and triggered the evacuation of more than 20,000 people. A few days later, rain, like a benediction, swept across the province, including Jasper, but it wasn’t enough to fully douse the flames.

Our plans to spend a week in August paddling and swimming in Jasper’s mountain lakes went up in smoke — a minuscule concern compared to the sorrow and struggles Jasperites face in rebuilding their lives, not to mention the terrifying, ongoing prospect of Canada’s vast forests continuing to burn, summer after summer.

More water woes flowed into our lives. In early August the City of Calgary announced the discovery of 21 new “hot spots” along that water main that broke in June, which meant shutting it down again for repairs on Aug. 26. So, we’re back in the goo, in Stage Four water restrictions, for at least a month.

Sure, we’re all tired of taking short showers, having greasy hair and not watering our parched yards. But the stakes are high. Living with a boil-water advisory is vastly worse than pitching in and doing our bit to reduce consumption. Even worse than boiling drinking water every day? Nothing comes out of the taps.

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Think of today’s water restrictions as a dry run. Because even after the water main is fixed (possibly a never-ending task given our city and our country’s aging infrastructure), we will always have to fret about water. Calgary is a dry place, prone to drought. We’ve had extreme droughts in the past and we’ll have more in future as climate change accelerates. Glaciers, the source of our water, are shrinking fast and the province’s population is soaring, putting more strain on water resources.

I figure everyone — individuals, government, industry and business — needs to develop a water obsession and act on it to make conservation a top priority. Let’s avoid a future of severe water shortages.

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