…it’s forty miles to the north shore. There is still open water here where the water drains north through the bridge. But loose ice has formed out into the lake. It’s a particularly dangerous time to be near water.
I crossed this bridge nine hours earlier in the dark. I was up at three and left home at four. It took three hours to get there. A wind warning was up for 100 kph winds. my lane was blown in and I barely got out in a one ton four wheel drive pickup…1995. The road regularly disappeared in the dark in the blowing snow.
I made a delivery of books…hunting books. $150 worth. It would pay in part for the boat. And then in Winnipeg they set it on top of the truck with a forklift and left me to fend for myself in extreme wind and cold. I could work a while and then had to stop and thaw my hands. It took an hour to strap it all down. And I was nervous. Seven one ton straps. Three in front and two behind and one on each of two racks. The weight did’t concern me. The Tracker weighs less than 200#. But there was ice. An inch of ice in the bottom of the boat that did not beat out like the guy driving the forklift had said it would. But it didn’t and it didn’t bother him that it didn’t.
The winds howled. I hit the northern ring road going west. Stopped for a fella to look at a .243 I needed to get rid of to buy this rig. The boat hung on, but the truck swayed under the wind. It was crazy. I thought that just might be one of the less intelligent things I ever did. But there was no turning back now. I pulled out of the gun deal and headed north. i could drive a maximum of 80 kph, and that’s when the wind didn’t hit me like a tidal wave.
For three hours I carried on north through St. Laurent, Lundar, Ericsdale, Lake Manitoba, and Vogar. And then at The Narrows the wind died down and within a few miles I was driving 100 and hitting Dauphin I fell in behind a semi and we drive through the dark all the way home in tandem. A half hour west and I was in my farmyard again. Road all blown in a neighbour had come and plowed me out.
And the next day we unloaded it with one of his tractors in his yard and I drove back down with a flat deck and hauled it home and unloaded it and now it sits in my yard.
Waiting.
…my boat.
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