Water control ensures Great Fish River Valley remains land of milk & honey

Abstract

WATER USER’S ASSOCIATIONS I t’s 1974 and the Great Fish River in the Eastern Cape is in flood. A newspaper photographer snaps a picture of farmer Oscar Evans wading, waist deep, across the swelling water. In his hand is a tiny mouse scooped up as it swam for its life. The flooding river wreaks havoc but it cannot defeat those living on its banks, no matter how small. On dry land Evans gently lets the gasping creature go and continues on his way to buy candles at the trading store. The next day the picture makes front-page news – a symbol of the spirit of those living in the 200 km-long valley. The Evans family have lived on their farm, Melrose on the Bedford side of the Great Fish River, since 1890. Then the Great Fish River was already a “sloot” ferrying water to an increasing number of farms in the valley. Before this though, at the end of the 1700s, the French ornithologist and explorer Francois Le Vaillant described the Great Fish as a series of marshy vleis filled with wallowing hippo. Today the giant Gariep Dam in the Free State feeds the river.

Authors

Categories