November is famous on the north coast for the storms that lash the coast over the course of the thirty days of nature’s most unstable month. But few storms have wrought such damage as the winds and rain of November 22, 1957.Today the Mount Oldfield slide is commemorated in Prince Rupert, it was fifty years ago during the noon hour of a normal Rupert day, that a massive slide of mud and debris flowed down the city side of the mountain along Wantage Road. A rumbling that caused more than a few to look up and upon its completion laid waste to a tract of land and unfortunately a number of lives
It had been a typical November in 1957, the rains as always a constant topic of conversation, but in the previous day before the slide it was an unusual pattern that settled over the city.
In 18 hours, 3.9 inches of rain had fallen over Prince Rupert, a pattern that brought with it high winds in the previous days of rain, a saturation that finally had the mountain surrender to Nature. Trees, mud, rocks all cascaded down in less than six minutes and claimed a recorded six victims, while leaving one child, 18 month old Selma Murray, as the sole survivor of the tragedy.
Traces of one of the more memorable of natural disasters in Prince Rupert history can still be seen on the mountainside, by a noticeable change in the vegetation pattern on the slopes towards Mount Oldfield.
November is famous on the north coast for the storms that lash the coast over the course of the thirty days of nature’s most unstable month. But few storms have wrought such damage as the winds and rain of November 22, 1957.
The Prince Rupert Library site has a link to the news of that most infamous day.
The Day the Mountain Fell
Prince Rupert Daily News
November 1957
On Friday Nov. 22 1957 it was blowing and the rain was beating down as it had done for days. At five minutes past 12 in the afternoon, Jack Krug shut off the engine of his power shovel to reach for his lunch pail. Digging out a pit on old Wantage road like he had done for days, Jack was feeling a little relief that the weekend was near. Chances were he could enjoy his wife's sandwiches and the hot coffee that was in his vacuumed packed thermos. "A poor day to be working outside", Krug reflected.
Suddenly he heard a rumble, looking up he saw Mt. Hays tumbling upon him 1,000 feet above. With no time to think Jack was out and running, fearing for his life. "It was as the whole mountain was moving" Jack recalled."The sight of it nearly made me freeze."
At 12:11 PM that Friday, the heavy duty cable strung along Wantage road to the C.N.R.'s vital communications repeater station snapped beneath the tremendous mass of earth that started tumbling down 2,300 foot Mt. Hays six minutes earlier. It was Prince Ruperts last link to go. In the previous 18 hours 3.9 inches of rain had fallen, not to mention the high winds that accompanied the rain in the past few days.
No one was quite sure who lay beneath the massive slide. When the rescue effort was complete, four men and two women were dug up from the murky grave. George Henderson, 64 year old millworker. Tom Perry, an unemployed laborer, found not to far from his 31 year old wife, June. Longshoreman, John Murray, his wife Merle and their two small children had just moved in days prior. A Fisherman, John Jordan Vandal, who happened to be walking across a bridge to visit the Murray's.
Selma Murray, the lone survivor, was unaware that she had cheated death at just the young age of 18 months. In the days that followed the slide, an out pour of telephone calls came into the hospital wanting to adopt the young girl. Gene Rheaume, laid claim to the young girl, as she was his niece. Gene was a welfare supervisor in Yorkton Saskatchewan, arrived in Prince Rupert to discuss the future for his niece. On December 1st 1957, the nurses at Prince Rupert General Hospital, dressed Selma in a new outfit and Gene was to take her with him.
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