The big blizzard of 1955
By Joan Janzen
The most talked about subject in Saskatchewan is the weather, because let’s face it, we experience our fair share of it, especially during winter. However, some winter storms seem to be remembered more than others, especially for seniors in our province.
Many seniors who experienced the blizzard in February 1947 had stories to tell. However, most people noted the most memorable blizzard blew throughout Saskatchewan a few years later, from December 12-14, 1955.
By early Monday afternoon on December 12, winds were blowing at 45 mph and gusting up to 60 mph. That’s as fast as most vehicles travelled back then.
Environment Canada climate records list a three-day blizzard resulting in 70-90 km/hour winds and gusts peaking at 121 km/hour. Not only were wind speeds high, but snow banks were also high.
A Saskatchewan senior remembered walking to school on top of the snowdrifts and touching the tops of the telephone poles. Another fellow said he walked off a snowbank and walked right onto the roof of the school. According to information published in The Clarion, school buses spent all afternoon delivering about 160 stranded school children from the rural areas to billets in townhomes.
A man recalls attending school at D’Arcy, Sask. The kids walked a quarter of a mile from the school to the local general store. They were all roped together, and once they got to their destination, they spent three days in the store. The good news was - the store owners had just received a good supply of food before Christmas, so the children had plenty to eat, including mandarin oranges, which were a rare treat.
Wednesday morning, a municipal caterpillar with bulldozer, the town’s patrol grader, and the front-end loader tractor were busy clearing drifts. Only the main business area had been made accessible to traffic by the end of the day.
The Clarion reports that men were stranded at the power plant and hadn’t eaten in 24 hours. At that time, a few brave men ventured out in a John Deere tractor, bringing the crew enough food and cigarettes to tide them over for three days.
Another Kindersley man was heading back to Kindersley during the storm. Two and a half miles east of Flaxcombe, he lost sight of the road and the windswept the rear end of his truck off the highway. Unable to get back on the road, he drove into the field, facing his vehicle away from the force of the wind. During the next twenty-eight hours, the man turned his engine off and on to warm up until he ran out of gas.
A search party from Flaxcombe searched for the missing man amidst very poor visibility. They stopped on the road and got out of their vehicle, but they couldn’t see the missing truck. As they listened, they heard a chain on the truck box clanking against the vehicle as it was swinging in the wind. The lost man had been found!
Others recall truck-mounted V-ploughs cutting through snowdrifts to clear roads, which only filled in higher the next time the wind began to blow. Caterpillars were able to push snow back and open roads, but they were pushing snow 15 to 20 feet high to the side of the road. Most children were transported to school in a sleigh for the remainder of the winter.
Saskatchewan received a record-breaking snowfall of 195 cm during 1955/1956. According to Environment Canada, that particular storm lasted for 43 hours, and for 30 of those hours visibility on the ground was rated at zero.
Storms will come, but eventually, they blow over. All that remains are memories and Environment Canada climate records.
This photo from Sask Archives is from the blizzard of 1947.
