A sense of urgency appears to have been the catalyist for — what turned out to be — immediate action to get the Lytton Ferry back up and running this week.

As of 3pm on Wednesday afternoon, the vital link crossing the Fraser River had been restored.

“Please note the Ferry is restricted to light traffic (6,000 gvw) and school buses only at this time,” said Yellowhead Road and Bridge, the operator of the Ferry, in a note sent out at 3pm on Wednesday.

“I’m so stoked its up and running now!” said Tricia Thorpe, the Lytton-area Director for the Thompson Nicola Regional District.

Her enthusiasm on Wednesday was a far cry from Monday, when the key access point to the communities on the west side of the Fraser River at Lytton was shut down abruptly at 7am that day.

“With the extremely cold temperatures and the low River levels, the Ferry closed,” lamented Thorpe in a conversation on Monday with Radio NL, not long after YBR took it out of service.   “It’s serious, because there are people on the west side. They can’t get out of there. There was no notice.”

However, on Tuesday, Thorpe’s demeanour over the situation began improving, after learning that long-standing work to get the Lytton Ferry back in operation was going to be moving ahead

“They are looking at it as more of an emergency now, which is really positive,” said Thorpe in an interview with Radio NL on Tuesday, a day after the Ferry was pulled out of service.  “I mean, it is an emergency, but the fact that they’re actually recognizing that this is a priority is key to my residents.”

The Ministry of Transportation and Transit began the process of shifting a number of larger rocks into the Fraser at the location of the Lytton Ferry berths on either side of the River early Tuesday.

This process helps expand the water levels at the access and egress points, which should eliminate one of the challenges that had been keeping the critical link for the area inactive — low water levels on the Fraser.

While pleased the process is over and the Ferry is back in service, Thorpe admits there’s still a level of frustration that the situation was able to get to this point to begin with.

She says rapid shutdown of the Ferry service had been of concern for operator YBR, as well as the Ferry’s owner, the Ministry of Transportation and Transit for months leading up to this week.

Thorpe notes initial plans to keep the Ferry operational were first put forward in the summer, but says they became bogged down by new environmental regulations.

She says those new regulations required a lot more scrutiny than what crews had been previously been under, when they would simply be able to collect rocks from the shoreline to bolster the Ferry berths.

“My understanding is that the rocks that they have to put into the River [now] have to have no acid.  My understanding is those rocks are sitting beside the river. They’re ready to go,” said Thorpe on Monday.   “They need to have environmental monitors. My understanding is they even need to go so far as to make sure that the machinery they’re using has an environmentally friendly oil in it.”

After Radio NL put out the story on the radio on Monday, Thorpe says she was contacted early the next day by Ministry officials to inform her that the long-awaited work to get the Lytton Ferry berth upgrades completed was underway.

That work ended much more quickly than Thorpe was told would be the likely timeframe, which was originally anticipated by the end of the week.

This was due to ice flows which had been coming down river

“It makes it harder for them to actually get those rocks in the river and get those landings repaired and raised,” noted Thorpe at the time.  “The other [issue] is, with the ice flows coming down the river, it’s possible that – even if they get the ferry landings operational – they may not be able to open the Ferry because of the ice flows and it not being safe.”

While the work was completed ahead of expectations, Thorpe notes the roughly 300 people who live and work on the west side of the Fraser River at Lytton did have their lives disrupted.

“It appears that everybody has been safe while things were shut down, and nothing major happened,” said Thorpe in a follow-up interview with Radio NL after the Ferry Service was restored on Wednesday.

“But it even shut down the local school. Stein Valley Nlakapamux School has been shut down since Monday,” noted Thorpe.  “It’s had a huge impact on the community.”

The Lytton Ferry, which can only handle two cars at most during a crossing, or a lone school bus due to weight restrictions, is still the only preferred route used during the winter months by the locals.

An alternate route for vehicles to access and exit the isolated region is techinically available, which would require a 50 kilometer drive — as the crow flies — north.

“The only way out of there is an extremely sketchy road that will take you to Lillooet,” noted Thorpe.  “In places, it’s literally… it’s one lane, and it’s got a very steep drop.  It’s often impassable in winter.”