Dire Straits, or, My Longest Post Ever

9:20 AM (or so I thought) I am probably 30 kM out of Cold Lake going towards Bonnyville. I am going to be way early for Church, a common problem I have.

I have passed the several things that I want to post about on the blog, and I see one just off the frontage road to my right that I want to photograph (later I'll post about that, much later). So I turn on one of the "grid roads" and turn again sharply past the full size stop sign for the frontage road and drive about a 500 yards down the frontage road wondering why it hasn't been plowed, yet. Yes, it is covered in snow, but I see tire tracks and just figured that because the farmers probably just use it to get to their fields there was no hurry to plow. Besides, I had driven on snow covered roads on the range, so I would just be careful.

But as careful as I was, I soon slid off onto the shoulder and wheelwell deep on the right side of the SUV into the snow. No traction. For about 45 minutes I dug out snow from the wheels and rocked back and forth. No joy. I should mention here that it is going to be a warm day and I am heading to church, so I did not wear my boots, I didn't even bring my gear at all. I am wearing Church clothes, Church shoes and regular (non-thermal) socks.

OK, call my co-workers, I know we have a tow rope, this has happened at the range they'll get me out.

Well, eventually got Kevin, who didn't have the big tow rope , but he got a couple of towing straps from Wal-Mart and came to get me. Meanwhile, I also called roadside assistance from the vehicle manufacturer, just in case. When they finally connected me with a local tow truck driver Kevin had arrived and after trying to pull me back onto the frontage road, gotten stuck himself. The local driver figured out where I was and promptly said he couldn't help me, good luck.

As an aside, you should know that I couldn't tell them where I was. I had scribbled directions on a scrap of paper from Microsoft Streets and Trips, but they were just "left on Hwy 28(55) and then right on 46th Street". Which ultimately got me to the Church, but I am getting ahead of myself, but gave neither me nor them any insight into just where I was. I really had no idea and didn't use common terms that they use, I was just an American lost somewhere in Alberta as far as they knew. The main contention was whether I was on 55 or 28 and I just didn't know. Further, I couldn't give them a cross street without hiking through the snow about a quarter mile (and after that awkward shoveling my back hurt so much I could barely move). When I did give them the cross street, it was RGE RD 440, which was meaningless to the roadside assistance people. Finally the local guy said he knew where I was, but I was too far off the RGE RD for his cable to reach me, so good luck.

I started calling Bonnyville towing companies, but no one was in on a Sunday. Finally I got one towing company to answer, and it was the same guy who just told me good luck! But he happened to be close (RGE RD 442) and he would swing by to see if there was anything he could do.

We tried shoveling Kevin's truck and got it out once, but then it went right back in. The tow truck guy stopped at the RGE RD, but wouldn't come down the frontage road to us. So I walked to him. Meanwhile a van stopped and a lady was talking to our tow driver. I figure he's going to help her and just leave, since he had already said he couldn't help. I finally got to him just as she drove away and I finally met Ted, the tow truck driver. He gave me an education.

It turns out I had turned onto a snowmobile or Quad trail. There was an old railway line that ran from Edmonton to Cold Lake and now it is a snowmobile trail and of course it is never plowed. But, I said, there are full size stop signs, the signs for snowmobiles I had seen in Cold Lake were smaller. Well, friends, snowmobile trails use full size stop signs, as I am here to testify. The tracks I had seen were not from trucks, but from Quads (4-wheelers I think we call them at home, some of them road by later and said it looked like we were having a bad day) that also run on the trail. Trucks can't go on there and my best bet would be if a local farmer had a tractor that could pull us out.

Oh, and it's daylight savings time in Canada, too and I had already missed Church, and in fact I probably wasn't early at all.

Remember, also, that the two stuck vehicles are all the vehicles our team has. Unless we get out, no one goes to work tomorrow, the guy who's flying back from Florida is stranded at the airport and we don't have a ride back to Cold Lake.

It turns out that the lady who stopped has a farm with her husband and kids. And her husband had the tractor out feeding the cows and she'll be right back with him!

But my luck held, as her husband had gone to town to get some tires fixed, and she can't drive the tractor. However, a farm on the next "grid road", which is what the locals call the RGE RD, also has a tractor and maybe they could help us.

Ted the tow truck driver gave me a lift to the farm on the next grid road, but he didn't have a tractor as we could plainly see from him using his truck to pull out a hay bail. Had we tried the Kruegar's, over yonder?

Ed Kruegar said he would help us and went to get his tractor out of the barn. Ted took me back to Kevin, who had given up on shoveling, finally. Ted then left us because he had other work to do. He couldn't pull us out, but he got us in contact with a farmer who could, or so we thought.

Ed's tractor finally gets to RG RD 440 and turns down the trail and about half way down goes off into the deep snow. ...and his wheels are spinning. Eventually, using his front end loader (he was backing toward us) he pulls himself out of that snow and drives back to the grid road turn off. Thank God I didn't get a 3rd vehicle stuck.

We walk down and talk to him. Nice man, had been a pilot in the Canadian Air force for 33 years and had been to Eglin. We asked him for ideas and after trying a trucking company his friend used to own (out of business) and the tower the oil fields workers use (their truck was too far away) he got his wife to call a man who fixes tractors. He wasn't home, but his dad (who used to run the first business we tried to call) was. We talked to him, his name is Carl Pardell (he has 4 or 5 clients from Florida that he guides on hunting trips), and he was afraid to come out with his tractor because the trail is kind of sensitive and the local counsel (whatever that is) forbids people to drive on it.

Ed talked to him (did I mention that I was wearing Church shoes, not boots, and not thermal socks and I was standing on, and sometimes in, snow?) and they decided to call the local council. Of course, my luck still holding, they couldn't reach anyone one on the council (did I mention that my cell phone had started that annoying beeping it does when I run out of battery?).

But they did have a friend who used to be on the council and Carl called him. He told Carl that he could do it at his own risk. I assured Carl that it was my responsibility, since it was my truck going on the trail that caused it and I would appear before any council he liked to admit my culpability, if he would just come and help us, please. He said he would be there in about 1/2 an hour.

Ed stayed and talked with us for a while and I learned a lot about land and mineral rights and the oil business in this province, but we'll save that for later postings.

Carl came. This is what salvation looks like.
It is an 8 wheel MF (Massey Furgeson, for those of you unfamiliar with farm equipment) with a snow plow on the front. First he plowed up close to us, several times backing and filing where the snow was especially deep or loose. The we hitched up a tow rope he brought to Kevin's truck and away they went.
That is Carl towing Kevin back down the snowmobile trail while Kevin attempts to reverse his way onto the section that Carl had plowed. It didn't work and Karl basically just towed Kevin back to the grid road. Good thing we got the insurance on these vehicles.

And this is what it looks like being towed backwards out of a skimobile trail that I never should have been on in the first place. Live and learn.For the record Vicki laughed when I told her of this excruciating 3 and 1/2 hour ordeal.

I finally got to the Church 3 or 4 hours late and took some pictures because no one was there. Came back to Lakeland Inn and took painkiller and hot bath and now have an icy-hot patch on my back.

Thank you to Ted, the lady in the van, Ed and Carl. Good decent folks all.