Why would anyone live here?

It was time for winter road. Rather more than time actually., the road was late this year. For the uninitiated, winter roads are not actually roads at all, they interconnected series of flat wooded areas, frozen lakes, rivers and swamps. They don't look like much in the summer and only a bit more in the winter. But they are the arteries of the north; through them flows the lifeblood of a hundred Northern communities. Everything comes in on them, quite literally from soup to nuts. If the roads are the veins then the truckers are the heart, pumping the lifeblood down a hundred snaking, winding trails that are little more than a pair of snowbanks twenty five feet apart.


The small Hamlet of Tulita on the banks of the MacKenzie River 624 Kilometers Northwest Of Yellowknife was waiting for the winter road. The store I run was out of some of the heavier items, items too heavy to fly in on the vintage WW II DC3s that keep the community supplied with perishables the rest of the year. As the store manager I was watching the road wondering where the truck was.Supposedly it had left Edmonton on Friday. Day After day, nothing. It takes a while to get here from Edmonton at the best of times. The first trip of the year on a new road, in the middle of one of the coldest weeks of the year was not the best of times. I stood on the steps of the store staring at the horizon as if I could see something. when my Grocery Manager Danny asked "Who is driving?" "I don't know." I answered. I would've felt better had I known it was one of our veteran drivers. "I'm calling Edmonton!" I talked to Jim Cameron at the trucking company. Jim worked for us, organizing freight and keeping us informed. I've known Jim for more than twenty years. "I don't know who's driving , but I wouldn't worry yet." he said reassuringly.

We went back to work but the truck was never far from our mind. By dusk on Monday I was starting to get concerned. i called Edmonton again, they had little more to offer other than that there were two trucks. There is safety in numbers so that was some relief.The bad news was that they were both new drivers and there had been some trouble, details were lacking. I took some solace in the fact that some other trucks were rolling by, there is an unwritten rule of the road up here, no one and I mean No One passes a stranded driver. This is not out of courtesy, this is a matter of life and death. Monday night came and went . Tuesday dawned even colder the mercury had dropped below minus fifty. I canvassed any drivers I saw, filling their insulated mugs with steaming coffee in the store. Word was that there were two rookie drivers who were limping along nursing problems with both rigs. They were sticking together and that is what the buddy system was for. Tuesday came and went. Wednesday was nearly as cold as the day before. I was sitting in my living room, it was about the hour that you take your first yawn and look at the clock. Then I heard the familiar rattle of a diesel engine. I looked out in the yard to see a rig with a trailer. I called Danny and told him I would meet him at the store. A shiver went down my spine as I pulled on my big winter boots, I dreaded leaving my nice warm living room, for what would surely be hours of cold, back breaking work. A tall lean figure was swinging down from the steps of the Volvo tractor as I walked toward the cab. "Who would live in a place like this?" he said in a thick English accent. "Midlands?" i said trying to peg down the accent " East Anglia actually." He said extending a badly blistered hand. I shook it carefully, turning the wound over and saying "Frostbite?" more a statement than a question. I've lived up north long enough to recognise it. "Tire chains." he said sardonically. It was late and we all wanted to be done so we showed him where to back up and began unloading the truck. We finished up just short of midnight. We retired to the staff room and I asked Kevin (the driver) if he wanted a cup of coffee. "I I would love a cup!" he replied eagerly, " I haven't eaten a since Sunday." My jaw must have hit the floor. "Why didn't you say something?" My Nova Scotia upbringing meant that feeding guests was in my blood. We put together a care package to get him through the night. "Meet me back here in the morning for a hot breakfast."
The next morning we enjoyed a full breakfast, with the rest of my staff, it's not everyday the boss cooks breakfast. I offered Kevin the use of a shower. Afterwards he told me the sad story of their journey, which was a nightmare from the get go. The other driver, Kevin's assigned buddy, was late. Kevin waited for him as long as he could but eventually he set out, waiting a while at every stop for the other driver to catch up. By the time the other driver caught up they were in Ft Simpson just a short distance from where the highway becomes a winter road. The other driver wanted to make up time so he wanted to push on through without going in to town for food. He insisted it was only a ten hour drive to Tulita and they would get something to eat there. Those ten hours turned in to four very long days. The hills between Simpson and Tulita tore the air bags on the rigs, leaving the trucks suspension flat and the trucks hard to handle. The snow proved too much for the treads on the trucks tires and putting on chains in minus fifty taught them the hard lesson of not taking your gloves off at those temperature, Their fingers were frozen and frostbitten in less than one minute. You can lose fingers that way. Very soon they were worn, tires, wounded and very hungry. "The road ate me up!" Kevin said in frustration. "I've driven all over Europe from North Africa to Poland, but nothing prepared me for this!" The deep dark circles under his bloodshot eyes confirmed this. " I don't know how I am going to get my rig fixed! I still have to go back over that road."
I set him up with a local owned company that owned heavy equipment and our grizzled mechanic. who could have retired years ago, stared quizzically at thee stranger with the odd accent and his "City Rig!" . "You can't drive that thing up here!" he spoke from decades of experience and I didn't doubt him for a second. I left Kevin in his very capable hands, they made an odd pair, grizzled veteran and stunned novice, still shy from having been dealt so harsh a backhand by raw cold mother nature. Life is like that up here we live on the edge, only a slip away from freezing to death on the side of a road, five hundred kilometers from the next human being. Kevin had lost the first round to the road but he was determined if a bit gun shy. I left them to it and returned to my work. We kept Kevin fed during the week. He soon learned that things move at a slower pace up here. I watched the stunned look turn from awe and shock to respect. You learn quickly up here to treat Old Mother Nature with respect, she Can turn on you and kill you in a heartbeat. The line between life and death is a fine one up here, we soon learn that you can't always make it alone. We look out for one another, it's the code of the north. It is a lesson that has been taught to outsiders since Henry Hudson, I had to learn it too, it was now Kevin's turn. It took a week before his rig, and more importantly his nerves were ready to face the road again. His hands were already healing. He came to say good bye before he left. He leaned out the window of his rig almost oblivious now to the biting cold. "I've done nothing this past week but say thank you to a whole lot of people who were complete strangers when I got here. I don't think I would have made it without all of you!" he said his voice thick with feeling. "I think I answered me own question." He said in that now familiar accent. "What question's that?" I asked. "I think I know now why people would live in a place like this. It's exactly because of the people who live here!" I agree, enough said!