“WE’RE AT 140 feet,” the well driller shouted over the rumbling of the drill. Excitement had turned to dread as we’d approached that magic number, the number that my husband, Robin, and I had agreed on as our limit to how deep we would dig searching for water. But there was no water to be found, just endless, suffocating, rock dust. “We can do another 20 feet on the house,” said the driller. “Oh, thank you,” I gushed, abandoning any pretense of composure. We were paying per foot and had already sunk more than $10,000 into that hole; I was desperate for our luck to change.
why a well?
Robin and I were building a house in Atlin, a small community in northern B.C. and on Taku River Tlingit First Nation’s territory. We needed a water supply and had considered our options, including water delivery by truck (costly), pumping water from a small creek (we worried about seasonal fluctuations), and even hauling it in ourselves (commendable but time consuming).
If you’re considering developing a well on your property, you’ve probably weighed similar alternatives. Even if you live on the lakefront, with a limitless supply of water out your front door, a well may offer advantages. “A drilled well can be better than drawing out of a lake, because you generally can worry less about bacteria,” says Colin Slade, a partner at Drillwell Enterprises, a third-generation family-run drilling business based in Duncan, B.C.
For us, the appeal of a well was irresistible: no time-limited showers, no fretting over tank levels on a long weekend, no biting our tongues as well-meaning guests ran the tap while doing the dishes. We figured our well
