Ranching field

By Cheryl Jahn

Drought Conditions

Lowlands face drought despite snowpack

Apr 6, 2026 | 3:31 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Farming is not for the faint of heart and Mother Nature is shaping up to make it another tough year in agriculture for this region.

“This year we haven’t seen any of that localization and snow,” says Mark Parker, Chair of the Board for the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako. “It’s all in the mountains and it’s getting hung up there. And that is where our snowpack is. We need that deep moisture in the soil that comes from the snowpack.”

While the snow packs levels are well above average for this coming spring in the mountains, it doesn’t help with ground water levels. The region has suffered through three consecutive years of drought.

“It is a valid concern when we’re talking about agricultural activities,” says Dr. Stephen Dery with Environmental Sciences at UNBC. “It’s certainly not a concern for the mid- to higher-elevations in the Nechako watershed and beyond. Certainly we’ve had a lot of snow at the higher elevations. In fact, we’re near record levels in some parts of the province, including the Peace River basin and parts of the Nechako, but at lower elevations it will hopefully get some more precipitation this spring and into the summer.”

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And the impacts are tough for those who have anything to do with agriculture: Seed prices go up, hay prices go up, feed prices go up and there is no income coming in.

“It’s nice if you’ve got a little bit of snow on the fields right through March into April, and then when you’re ready to seed, you still got a moisture bank,” says Parker. “But as you see on the fields now that are bare, they’re going to be dry. And it creates a really big challenge to get any crops to actually take, to get germination. And it’s not cheap to be doing this and having failures because you’re not getting the moisture.”

But some projects are underway in a bid to trap some vital water such as building man-made beaver dams in and around Vanderhoof.

“We’re drying up, period,” says Wayne Salewski with the Nechako Environment Stewardship Society. “So land clearing policies, mountain pine policies, wildfires. Everything is contributing to the drought issue that’s there. And, that’s the end result of it.”

“To maintain that water instead of having it run down to the coast, why don’t we maintain it here? Eventually it’ll get there but we’re holding it back,” says Parker. “You can irrigate out of it. You can water cattle out of it. You’ve got a fire source of water for any fires. So they’re a win win all the way around.”

So what would it take to stave off another drought in the region?

“We’ll we need precipitation levels to continue being at least average if not above average going into the spring and summer,” explains Dr. Dery. “Of course, that’s the growing period, and that’s when we do depend on that extra precipitation, to replenish soil moisture.”

In the meantime, users of the watershed have pulled out all the stops to get water into the ground and keep it there.