A Cape Breton couple says they have been watching their property slowly disappear into the ocean for more than 30 years, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Kay and Michael Boulet’s home now sits about four metres away from a 25-foot cliff in Port Morien, N.S. and they say the chances of it slipping into the ocean increase with each passing storm.
“We keep moving things back farther and farther, but it keeps coming in closer and closer. It’s to the point where you can’t move anything anymore. My house is too close to the road, so I can’t move it,” says Kay.
“It will shake the house. You can be in there and you will know…a rock has fallen and there goes another three or four feet of the bank.”
The Boulets say their son used to drive his motorcycle through the backyard and into the shed, but that’s no longer possible. They say it has become dangerous to even walk to the shed from their home; Michael slipped and fell over the bank a few years ago.
“I got a little too close to the edge and it was all ice and my two feet came out from underneath me,” he says.
The Boulets hope government will step in and help, but so far no one has offered any assistance.
“If the government would put some kind of a seawall, or build it up with armour stones, anything to keep the erosion from eating away so fast at it,” says Michael.
Local MLA Alfie MacLeod says the federal government is responsible for the ocean, while the province is responsible for the land.
“It’s one of those things that happen and there doesn’t seem to be anything that anyone is prepared or able to do within the budget,” says MacLeod.
Meanwhile, the couple is worried they may have to leave a home they worked their whole lives to build.
“I couldn’t sell it because nobody would want it,” says Kay. “I know it’s an older home, but we’ve done a lot of work on it and it’s a pretty nice place to be.”
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore
