Woman returns from vacation to find property crumbling into Humber River

Jane Janes has been back home on Pine Tree Drive since Friday, but she never ventured out to get a good look at the riverbank crumbling around her property until Tuesday.

Janes, whose maiden name is Moss, was born on the Deer Lake street some 76 years ago and has lived there all her life.

Relatives of the Moss family own most of the homes on the street.

Three days before a major rainstorm struck the area Jan. 13 and triggered significant erosion of the banks of the Humber River along Pine Tree Drive, Janes left to visit her daughter’s family in Alberta.

While in Alberta, she got daily updates and saw all the photos her daughter, Christine May, was regularly posting on social media. Her level of concern, allayed while being so far removed from it, has been elevated now that she can see what’s happening firsthand.

Until Tuesday, she had only peered out at the cracking soil around her property through a window.

So far, the river has claimed two apple trees and her pumpkin patch, along with some windows for her greenhouse. A small decorative lighthouse, frozen stuck in the ground, is precariously close to also being lost.

Stairs leading down to the river are also compromised by the shifting sands.

“I knew land could be reclaimed after a while, but I didn’t expect to see all of that,” she said after her first venture outside to assess the situation up close.

“It’s wicked. It’s worse than what I thought it was.”

Janes is all too familiar with January thaws. She remembers being awakened in the middle of the night by loud crashes and bangs as sheets of ice clashed with one another on their migration towards Deer Lake during previous mid-winter mild spells.

The chunky pack ice that jammed the mouth of the river last month, causing it to back up and rise so high that the banks began eroding in places, was unlike anything Janes has ever experienced in all her years living on the river.