I often stopped to watch Gar Creek from the driveway bridge. The water gushed under the horizontal root of an old cedar stump and chattered onward between mossy boulders, down to the lake. Wild blackcurrant bushes nodded on the bank.
Photo: Lynne March
This was our paradise, a rustic Kootenay house beside the lake; shady in summer, protected in winter, with a million-dollar view. It’s shown here in the fall of 2010 as Virginia creeper turned red and the roof was under reconstruction.
Photo: Mandy Bath
Driftwood and iris under Ruth’s cypress tree made a welcoming garden on our driveway south of Gar Creek. Some iris survived but the cypress tree was felled by the slide.
Photo: Renata Klassen
The post office cabin is a one-room log house dating from the 1920s that had served as the community’s post office in the early days of settlement. It has accommodated many passing travellers and visitors over the years.
Photo: Mandy Bath
Our garden became a study in driftwood and rock decoration. The gateposts were two upended driftwood tree trunks, their root balls standing tall like hairy headed giants. Driftwood created the gate, wove along the fence and marked out the garden beds.
Photo: Renata Klassen
A short path led from the driveway down to Johnson’s Landing’s beach and the bay that looks south towards Birchdale, Kaslo and beyond. Christopher constructed a boardwalk and deck so our friend, Paul Hunter, could join us there in his wheelchair.
Photo: Lynne Campbell
The first landslide left Gar Creek brim-full of trees and mud. Only about half the debris descended the creek channel.
Photo: Renata Klassen
The first debris flow in the channel on July 12, ground to a halt at the mouth of Gar Creek, depositing very little into the lake. Our roof is visible on the left edge of the slide, near the shoreline.
Photo: Courtesy BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
The house was pushed, folded diagonally and collapsed. Windows blew out, walls flipped over but the movement was so gentle that pots of herbs and geraniums still clung to the edge of the deck.
Photo: Greg Utzig
The roof crashed onto the deck and the corner post snapped; the landslide pushed the house about three metres towards the lake.
Photo: Greg Utzig
The morning following the first slide I returned to our homesite in a friend’s boat. After an ear-splitting cracking noise exploded above us we raced back to the boat and sped away from shore, chased by the second slide. We watched as the creek disgorged its innards and the house disappeared under waves of mud.
Photo: Mandy Bath
The second slide scoured out the creek channel, depositing 10,000 cubic metres of tree debris into the lake.
Photo: Courtesy BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
The path of the landslide: approximately 320,000 cubic metres of soil and rock travelled at speeds of up to 150 kilometres per hour down the Gar Creek channel. Half the material leapt out of the channel and poured across the Johnson’s Landing bench, destroying three homes and killing four people.
Photo: Courtesy BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
The home of John and Jillian Madill was caught by the edge of the slide. John sprinted clear, behind the wall on the left side of this photo, but was pelted by flying debris. A log skewered the house from front to back.
Photo: Christopher Klassen
This photo shows the slide path viewed from the source area. The total distance to the lake is 2.8 kilometres.
Photo: Courtesy BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
The vast wave of material buried the Webbers’ house. It side-swiped Harvey Armstrong’s pottery studio and house, causing substantial damage.
Photo: Courtesy BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
Our driveway and garden were inundated by silt after the second landslide.
Photo: Mandy Bath
Vancouver’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR) task force deployed to Johnson’s Landing within twenty-four hours.
Photo: Courtesy City of Vancouver
HUSAR provided personnel and equipment but task force members were unfamiliar with the lay of the land and the exact location of the Webber and Frehse house sites.
Photo: Courtesy City of Vancouver
Neighbour Bob Yetter drew a diagram of the Webber house orientation and its relation to existing landmarks in order to assist HUSAR members in their search.
Photo: Courtesy City of Vancouver
Facing an incredibly difficult and dangerous job, the bravery and commitment of all the rescue teams was admirable.
Photo: Courtesy City of Vancouver
One week after the landslides, this was my first sight of our home: an earthy mound, some bunched timbers, an edging of deck and a bit of roof held against two brave old fir trees that had somehow stood strong.
Photo: Mandy Bath
Christopher, Roger, Carol and Kurt sat down at our mauve picnic table. I took a photo of my four shell-shocked companions in front of what looked like a movie set from a dystopian film. They looked like ghosts. I don’t know how we could even eat, talk or walk.
Photo: Mandy Bath
Derek Baker brought his barge to Johnson’s Landing on Sunday, July 15. He made numerous trips across the lake ferrying stranded vehicles to the highway at Schroeder Creek.
Photo: Christopher Klassen
Duncan Lake and his excavator uncover ‘Jerald’ our Toyota Tercel within an hour of the first day of excavation at the house-site.
Photo: Kurt Boyer
Christopher laboured in the pit, exhuming the corpse of our home.
Photo: Kurt Boyer
“I was left alone under a blue sky, puffs of white cloud, the expanse and satisfaction of Kootenay Lake laid out before me to both north and south. The meditative quiet was broken only by the thud and clink of my pick and shovel as I probed yet another corner of hell.” —Christopher Klassen
Photo: Kurt Boyer
Christopher stands amidst a scene resembling a garbage dump. Except that we recognized every filthy rag, shard of crockery and broken shoe. Not garbage: our things.
Photo: Kurt Boyer
RCMP Corporal Chris Backus (shown here with his dog Caesar) arrived at Gar Creek within two hours of the first slide and stayed in the Landing for a week. Residents noted that “he went way above and beyond the call of duty.”
Photo: Courtesy Chris Backus
As the incident commander and rescue mission coordinator, Kaslo Search and Rescue manager Bruce Walker also provided assistance to the Vancouver HUSAR team.
Photo: Louis Bockner
Excavator operator Duncan Lake assisted many people with hazardous digging projects beside and within the Gar Creek channel.
Photo: Louis Bockner
Deb Borsos, North Kootenay Lake’s emergency contact person, became the Regional District of Central Kootenay’s recovery manager for the Johnson’s Landing disaster.
Photo: Louis Bockner
Retired coroner and forensic anthropology specialist Bob Stair conducted the recovery operation on behalf of the BC Coroners Service. After Val and Diana Webber’s bodies were found, BC’s chief coroner suspended the recovery operation. Bob persuaded her to authorize a resumption of the search a week later, and recovered Rachel Webber’s body on July 25.
Photo: Louis Bockner
Petra Frehse—her cabin was located beside the creek with windows overlooking an untamed garden and the wildlife she adored. Misinformation about her whereabouts prior to the slide delayed the search of the site near her own home.
Photo: Frehse family collection
A memorial rock and plaque stand on the small remaining corner of Petra Frehse’s land in Johnson’s Landing.
Photo: Mandy Bath
Valentine Webber loved to be on the lake in his dark green wooden rowboat, the Diana K.
Photo: Webber family collection
Val Webber and his girls, Diana and Rachel, were having breakfast together in their home when the slide occurred.
Photo: Webber family collection
Only minutes before the landslide and feeling inexplicably unsettled, Diana Webber phoned a friend and arranged to visit her on the other side of the creek after finishing breakfast with her dad and sister.
Photo: Webber family collection
In the days after the tragedy Val Webber’s kindly smiling face gazed out from the front pages of national newspapers, his arm embracing Rachel, one of his two beloved daughters.
Photo: Webber family collection
Rachel Webber—when the chief coroner warned that she might never be located in the massive debris field, some of Rachel’s young friends refused to accept the prospect of not recovering her and vowed to go to Johnson’s Landing and dig with their own hands.
Photo: Webber family collection
Diana had driven up from Los Angeles and spent a couple of days in Kaslo visiting her sister Rachel. On the day before the landslide, Diana and Rachel drove to the Landing so they could spend time together with their dad.
Photo: Webber family collection
[Left to right] Diana and Rachel’s mother, Lynn Migdal, and friends Lila Taylor and Margie Smith in Val’s rowboat on the first anniversary of the landslide, July 12, 2013.
Photo: Louis Bockner
On the first anniversary, Renata Klassen scatters petals on the water in memory of the four who died.
Photo: Louis Bockner
Two old survivors: Mandy Bath and Christopher Klassen, stand on the earthy mound, site of their former home.
Photo: Margaret Smith
The driveway and abandoned garden are still beautiful in October 2014.
Photo: Lynne Campbell