Gord and Theresa Orchard have played some of their best family games of shinny on the pond out back of the house when the water freezes over each winter.

In summer, it makes a great swimming hole.

This property is the couple’s dream home — a sprawling riverfront acreage a few kilometres west of High River with a two-storey custom-designed house and a coveted mountain view.

The thought of leaving it has them paralyzed, but they have to make a decision soon on whether to stay or go.

“I love it here,” says Gord, 63.

“I know it carries its risks a couple weeks every summer, but it (is) such a beautiful place to be the rest of the time. It’s hard to find a home and a place to live that offers this type of tranquillity and beauty and wildlife.”

The Orchards live in one of the 254 properties the government says are in the river floodways — red zones too dangerous to live in since the disastrous June floods and too costly for taxpayers to deal with the fallout of future disasters.

For these Albertans, spread across High River, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Bragg Creek, Black Diamond and Turner Valley, Saturday is decision day.

By then, they must indicate to the province whether they’re considering taking up the government’s offer to buy out their property.

If they turn it down, the offer is off the table for good. To further up the ante, the government says people in the floodway will get only one more offer of flood assistance, no matter how many disasters strike down the road.

The proposal has raised the ire of some homeowners in and out of the red zone, who question the maps the province used to make the policy and claim the changes are being forced through too quickly, without enough information about big-ticket flood mitigation plans.

So far, just 97 floodway homeowners have expressed interest in relocating — less than 40 per cent. The province says it has made offers on 39 of those properties, at a cost of $37.5 million.

“We know they’re going to want more information. We encourage them to apply to the program and express interest in this by Saturday,” municipal affairs spokesman Tim Wilson said.

Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths wasn’t available to comment this week.

In inner-city Calgary, flood-hit Monique Beaumont’s decision was an easy one.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says.

The 48-year-old has lived along the river her whole life. Twenty years ago, she bought a century old mission-style house in Roxboro, a character neighbourhood on the banks of the Elbow.

Even though Beaumont is digging in her heels to stay, she fears the government’s floodway policy — which she calls haphazard, flawed and a “monumental waste” — will first leave her community gap-toothed as select homeowners pack up and go, then wipe it out entirely.

“It’s been very difficult to watch people take a buyout when they know very well it’s going to ruin our street and ruin our neighbourhood,” says Beaumont, who got about eight centimetres of water on her home’s main floor in the flood.

“They’re buying out people that don’t need to be bought out. It’s a lot of money the province is throwing away here, and people in Alberta should be upset about this.”