I know better.
Yesterday Hilary and I were scheduled to fly to Iqaluit. She had some dental work that couldn't be done up here and so we were supposed to have spent a couple of days down there, returning hopefully in time for her to be Mary in her pre-school concert skit. (And as much as I love my daughter and think that she is one of the coolest kids around, I have trouble imagining her as a saint. Just saying.)
So we were up ultra early and waited for the taxi to come and pick us up, and waited. I was sure I saw the taxi moving in another part of town, and as the minutes ticked by I began to think that they'd forgotten us. So I started the truck and bundled Hilary and I up and headed for the airport. Now this is the part where I know better.
Air travel is a fickle thing up here. Weather often plays havoc with our schedules, and the smart thing to do before driving a half an hour on a lonely road in the middle of a dark Arctic winter's morning is to call and make sure everything is going ahead. That's the smart thing but it wasn't what I did.
Now there was a little wind in town, but really not that bad. The weather seemed fine as we headed out. As we got out down the road, it began to be clear that the weather wasn't find. The wind was howling and seemed to pick up the farther we got from home. Visibility became more and more reduced and I began to drive slower and slower. As we climbed the hill between First and Second bridge I was down to driving 10 -15 kms/hr.
Now there are some times when it is good to be stubborn, but this wasn't one of them. I was alone on a road that I couldn't see, with a four year old. I hadn't taken our sat phone as is my wont when travelling in the winter here. And it was clear that no plane was going to land in this. Up on the heights with visibility now down to zero I inched around carefully because the last thing I wanted to do was put a wheel off into a snow bank and get stuck. Disappointing my daughter, who has talked about little else other than going on the airplane for the past 10 days, we headed for home.
The plane had of course been cancelled before we left town and a simple phone call would have kept us from risk. Had we gone off the road, it was unlikely that someone would have been traveling on the road and find us. My wife may have well assumed that we made the plane and were in Iqaluit and not sent anyone out to look for us in this full blown winter storm. By the time we'd back tracked a half of a kilometre our truck tracks were already gone, filled in with drifting snow. We made it home safely but a lesson in winter travel up here was driven home.
One cool thing about driving in the storm though, at one point I was driving in the same direction as the wind and at the same speed as the driven snow. It was the weirdest sensation, as it appeared as though nothing was moving. Visually the truck was not in motion, the snow suspended in mid air around us. We obviously felt like we were moving as the truck rattled along, and the two sensations were discordant, confusing the heck out of my tiny brain.
Hilary, by this time was sleeping through it all.
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2 responses
Scary. I know. It’s all too easy to get complaisant. “How bad can it be?” One can find out pretty quickly how bad it can be out on a lonely road when the wind picks up and snow starts blowing. Glad you got back home safely.
I’ll remember to take my phone with me next time Kathy.