Monday 15 March 2010

It wasn't the Titanic but it sank too...

I had 7 people on an overnight tour. 3 couples were driving sleds on which one person sits while the other one drives the sled. There is no space for the luggage on those sleds so for logistic reasons, I had to drive a snow mobile with a trailer carrying our food, luggage and other necessities. One person would be driving what we call a "touring" sled. Just a normal sled with 3 dogs. These touring sleds are a little more difficult to drive as they require more balance from the driver.

I gave my usual safety instructions, insisting on the fact that whatever happens, it is VERY important for the drivers NOT to let go the sleds. Whenever a person falls off a sled, if they hang on to the sled, the dogs will stop. If they loose the sled, the dogs will run away, never stopping, fearing the sled out of control behind them.

Because of the trailer behind the snow mobile, I had decided to take a different route from the usual one to avoid an uphill part. We would drive straight onto the village road towards the river, rather than turning left in the forest towards the swamps. So I parked the scooter further down on the road after the forest trail and waited for my guests to follow with their sleds. I got off the scooter and stood in the middle of the road to call the dogs so they don't try to turn in the forest.

We started the tour and... my lady on the touring sled did not brake at all and her team soon got out of control. She fell off and lost the sled. I was standing a few meters away from the place where she fell and I had no chance to catch the team that passed at about 15km/hour and turned into the forest.

I ran back to the scooter, unhooked the trailer and drove off to chase the lost dog team. As I was driving on the swamp area, I caught a glimpse of the dog team heading full speed on a trail to my left. I had already passed the junction to that trail and had to drive further to another junction to follow them.

Unfortunately, the next junction was a sharp 90 degree turn, which is pretty hard to take with a snow mobile of about 300kg (700lb). As I took the turn, the machine went off on the right side of the trail. The swamp is normally totally frozen in the winter, but the weather had been warming up lately... As I was turning, I saw the glistening surface and hoped that it was still ice... but I soon realized that it was not... The machine started sinking from the rear and I pressed hard on the gas, hoping to pull it off before it was too late... But it was too late... I was totally stuck in the water, half of the machine under water...

A girl with a small scooter passed by and I asked her to help me to pull the scooter off the water but after a few unsuccessful attempts, we gave up . I was in the water up the thighs, with water in my boots, which, even by a warm -10 degrees was getting pretty quickly uncomfortably cold. My thoughts went back to the lost dog team and I called my boss for some help. He instructed me to leave the scooter and head back to the kennel and keep going with my tour. I would drive a sled on which the person who lost her team would sit.

The girl gave me a lift to the kennel and, after changing shoes and socks, I drove off with my guests. In the meantime, my boss took another scooter to chase the dog team. After a few phone calls from people who had seen the team passing by, he found them on the river. Then he headed back with another colleague to get the scooter out of the water. It took them 2 hours of breaking the ice, emptying the water from the hole and lifting up the scooter with pieces of wood. All that time with wet feet.

I was angry at myself for sinking the scooter, as I am pretty sure that, if it had not happened, I would have caught up with the dog team and managed to sort out the entire problem without requiring anybody's help.
I got in touch several times with my boss that evening and although he's not the type to tell you off, I could feel that he was pretty pissed off with me. I came back from the tour the following morning and found a picture of me on his garage door with the handwritten message "WANTED, dead or alive"... Under my picture was a picture of the scooter in the water... Oops...