We Are Community: 10 Years of Pent-Up Inspiration

In 1997 the Red River spilled over its southern Manitoba banks in what was to be known as the “Flood of the Century.”

I was in the Canadian Forces at the time and posted in Edmonton with the 3^rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. We were deployed briskly and with little warning; one minute enjoying Tim Horton’s coffee while telling “war stories” from training exercises and the next traveling east in the largest military ground convoy any of us participating in it had ever seen. It was surreal and exciting and we had little idea of what was going on.

Most of us had no idea there was a natural disaster happening until we hit the ground. I remember waking up and groggily peering out the window of the transport to see a lake. As we slammed to a halt and the shock stripped away my sleepy stumble I realized that what I was seeing was not just another of Manitoba’s 1000 lakes. In the dark it just looked like old farm debris junked in the water. Piling off the bus we could see that it was in fact a small community overrun by the surging Red. The river was rising so fast that it had un-expectantly taken the road we were driving on, cutting us off from our destination. The entire convoy turned around destined for an alternate route and after driving through long stretches of submerged roadway, we arrived in Ile Des Chene, Manitoba.

We spent the next three weeks in a community centre at the middle of this little town south of Winnipeg. Every day started in the dark of the morning and ended in the dim of the cold prairie nights. We filled sandbags, built dykes, bailed water by hand and pump. We spent days up to our ankles and knees in dirty contaminated water that had flowed over landfills, gas stations, feed lots, chemical dumps, and hundreds of other undesirable locations that I still don’t really want to think about. We worked alongside homeowners and Heterites, farmers and firemen, and over 70,000 volunteers from all over the United States and Canada.

I really didn’t do much in the army. I am convinced of the fact that for the most part my Military career was uneventful as pertaining to official duty. I look back and there is nothing that compares to the weeks spent fighting the flood. I always had a deep passion to be part of something at a level that I just couldn’t seem to find in the usual ways. I joined the army to find this devoted belonging and find it I did. Nowhere was this more obvious then while struggling with trench foot on 3 hours of sleep with hands blistered and bleeding tossing sandbags down a daisy chain of strangers who had all come together for one common purpose: Helping our neighbours.

In that three weeks this community of residents, military, relief groups and volunteers filled and distributed 8.1 million sandbags, 3.7 million by hand. Over 23,000 members of the community were provided with emergency social services. Approximately 45,000 truck loads of clay were used to build earth dykes. The water was over 6 feet deep in the communities south of Winnipeg and often the sandbags would be pilled higher than the roof tops of the houses they surrounded.

In times of desperation, people come together. These statistics are more than simply numbers; they are quantitative figures, undisputed evidence of a miracle. These ingredients came together to do more than save some property. Property was just collateral to the hope and love that was really created by the unity of purpose that was in action.

Houses were lost despite all of our best efforts. We moved with such determination and unity that anyone could have been fooled to thinking the house belonged to us. I was standing on the dyke of one with ten or twelve others racing in fluid motion to shore up a failing section when the wall on the other side could simply hold back no more. It collapsed and the pressure from 6 feet of flood water overtook the house in seconds with enough force to shatter windows and knock doors off hinges. The pocket of safety created by the dyke filled so quickly it was as if the water was always there and we just never saw it.

We piled into the big black 15 man assault raft, wet like drowning rats, cold, defeated and loaded with adrenaline. As we motored the family to the safe shoreline of what was once the highway leading into Ile Des Chene, the family, despite being distraught by loosing it all, were grateful and at peace with the fact that every possible human act was done to save it. It was simply an unavoidable act of destiny that was set to occur no matter what.

It was at that very moment, looking into the faces of those newly homeless victims of nature, that I felt the sense of belonging and purpose I had been craving for as far back as memory serves me. Like a heroin addict chases the dragon, I have been looking for this degree of community ever since. I want to find it, hold onto it, share it and use it to inspire the rest of the world to realize that we are all one; we are community.

I don’t believe that we need to wait for the undeniable force of nature gone wild to discover the spiritual experience resulting from a deep unified responsibility for each other. We as humans, when unified in a tight community, can make miracles happen. I really believe that even conflicts as profound as war and religion are insignificant when faced by a community that acts in love, not fear, to find a collaborative and lasting solution.

It has been just over ten years since the “Flood of the Century.” Ten years since my community awakening and the spiritual experience that has influenced so much of my life. It has taken these ten years to find the clarity and focus in my life to articulate my passion for belonging. This will not be a typical blog. This is just an expression of passion that begins my latest endeavor to foster an attitude of common responsibility, unity of purpose and shared respect in communities big and small. I hope that future posts about all things related to building community and fostering unity inspire and motivate people to put a little love into the lives of their neighbours.

After all, we are community.