A long winter

[[JiF]ALargeWoodenBadger]

OK, its been a long, long winter. Snow led to more snow and cold nights led to even colder mornings. We got our first snowfall in October and the sound of snowplows have sung me to sleep each night and woken me each morning. Around here we mark the end of winter by the arrival of the ice breaker. Each spring the first ship of the year is escorted out of the harbour by either a Canadian or American ice breaker. This year with the thickness of ice in the bay the ice breaker may have its work cut out for it.

So on Tuesday the “self unloader” Frontenac was to be led through the ice by the USCGC Biscayne Bay. In preparation an official goodbye and good sailing party was held on the decks of the Frontenac on Tuesday. The party was to break up when the Biscayne Bay arrived to free the Frontenac from its winter prison and signal the arrival of spring. So all Tuesday morning the Frontenac blew its horn to celebrate the first voyage of the shipping season.

Now, depending on where you live the horn on a 27,000 ton freighter can rattle your windows. But who cares, spring is here. For reasons I’ll never understand being awoken at 5:00am by the sound of a departing freighter isn’t half bad as being awoken at 6:00am by the sound of a snow blower. On Tuesday I was awoken twice, once by each. Each time I bolted upright looking for my gun - then I remembered I live in Canada and don’t own a gun. Many lives were saved.

News that the Biscayne Bay was stuck in heavy ice didn’t arrive until late Tuesday afternoon and the official party was forced to retire to the local pub. Fortunately the pub owner understood the disappointment and extended closing hours to help people overcome their despair. Many lives were saved.

A second unidentified ice breaker was dispatched to free the trapped ice breaker and the unfortunate Biscayne Bay finally made into harbour around Thursday noon. A smaller official going away party was immediately arranged and the Frontenac began blowing her horn in anticipation of her departure. (And I still don’t own a gun.) However it seems that two days of pushing through heavy ice all but exhausted the fuel reserves of the Biscayne Bay and she was forced to tie up for the night to await the arrival of a fuel truck.

Once again the official party was forced to retire to the local pub to commiserate. Of course the crew of the Biscayne Bay decided to join them. So town officials, company brass and the crew of the Biscayne Bay had a few beers together. The crew were particularly distraught by the poor internet connection they had endured while trapped. The isolation was unbearable. The harrowing story of the two nights spent stuck in the ice without access to Netflix took longer then expected. Fortunately the pub owner took pity and serving hours were extended thus allowing the crew time to reintegrate with society. Town officials and company brass never left their sides and as a sign of support and solidarity. That’s just the kind of people we are. Many lives were saved.

Friday morning the horn of the Frontenac begin to blow again. For some reason many of the town officials held the side of their collective heads and yelled “turn that damn thing off!’ All of them reaching for the guns they wished they had. Only this is Canada and only town officials with criminal tendencies have access to a gun. This meant that only half of us were armed. To prevent bloodshed, company brass (while holding the side of their collective heads) threaten the Frontenacs’ captain with keel hauling if he made anymore noise until everyone had coffee. Lots of coffee. Fortunately, the owner of the pub said he had a big pot brewing. Again, many lives were saved.

Fueling took much longer the expected. For some reason yet to be explained, the crew of the Biscayne Bay were moving in a slow robotic fashion. It seems some joker kept turning off the noisy fueling pump. Ha Ha. No one was caught but it meant the Biscayne Bay was still taking on fuel when I last went down to the dock around 4:00pm. I still don’t own a gun but expect that I will be waking up at 5:00am wishing. Still tomorrow with luck spring will finally be here and thanks to that many, many lives will be saved.

[[JiF]ALargeWoodenBadger]

USCGC Biscayne Bay

Frontenac

The pub

Winter

Spring

[[JiF]major confusion]

Pretty cool pics Badger.
Living in Michigan, the lake traffic is pretty neat to watch.
Have you ever been to the Soo Locks?

[[JiF]Smuckers]

Spring has sprung many lives have been saved, and the people rejoice! Badger you are to much.

[[JiF]Top321us]

LOL
Badger you are a master of telling a story.
You even made me look and go, damn, Nebraska winters really are not that bad.
I never thought those words would ever come out of me!
I am with you - I am very happy spring has arrived.

[[JiF]Sgt Shellshocked]

Great story Badger , when can we have the next installment?

[[JiF][AARP]Tissueman]

Badger, I always enjoy your tales of the Great White North. It is inspiring to read about the strength and character fueled by visits to the pub that it takes to live in such a cold harsh climate. It is so inspirational that I feel like popping open a cold one this morning to express my solidarity with my Canadian brethren. I still hope to visit Midland some day. Please let me know what day will be summer so I can plan my visit.

Sincerely,

Tissue
(Maybe I could move there and be your American sidekick -- the one you call "Yank" and save when he inadvertently insults the ice breaker crew when he's had too much to drink in the pub.)

[[JiF]ALargeWoodenBadger]

Tissue I’m shocked by the idea of you standing in the local pub and insulting the crew of the American ice breaker Biscayne Bay. You, of all people should know that the decade of ‘The Ugly American’ is long over. Burdick & Lederers’ political thriller has become dated, gone the way of the balanced budgets and entertaining TV shows. Now is the decade of the chubby American, Marlon Brandos’ aggressive and overbearing character has been replaced by the latest incarnation of John Belushi/Chris Farley/John Candy (Gabriel Iglesias maybe?). The typical plot revolving around an overweight and sweaty American tourist trying to get someone - anyone, to accept American dollars at par. Laughs ensue. The scene fades as our corpulent hero pulls his chair directly up to the all-you-can-eat buffet serving table. Freeze frame, again laughs ensue. It is being billed as a ‘reality show.’

Tissue I know of your love of all things donut. Do you think you could learn to love doughnuts too? They are similar in construction but instead of sugar we like to use sucrose. Something about the word having both an ‘o’ and ‘u’ in it - it just feels more honourable. Plus you would have to get used to a drink we have called “beer”. It’s just like American beer only it has alcohol in it.

Other then that you are welcome in my town and home at anytime. Summer is scheduled to start in the second week in June and run until the third week of July after which we are expecting snow. Remember every second Wednesday is mandatory health checkup day. We have imported thousands of qualified Doctors from India to probe, poke and prescribe to us. As a nation we find it more comforting to be told of our cancers and tumours in a voice that sounds like Apu on the Simpsons. They are even legally required to say “Thank you - come again” at the end of each visit. Makes the whole tax thing seem worth while.

Don’t plan to visit too early as we are once again in the middle of a Federal election. The Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Block and Green parties are fighting for power. They, the political parties, are collectively known by my American friends as those ‘G.D. Socialists’. This is grossly unfair since only four of them are on the left wing – the fifth is actually fascist.

If you do decide to visit this summer remember to bring a sweater – helps keep the mosquitoes off.

[[JiF]Lt Gav]

Great story Badger. You can just tell that you are decended from the British. Everything is solved by a trip to the pub!
The pub is the greatest venue for discourse. All the wrongs in the world are dicussed & put right over a few beers. The success or not of sports teams, the politics of the nation but most of all here in the UK the weather. Oh the weather. Reading your story makes one glad to live in a temparate climate fuelled by the Gulf Stream from the Gulf of Mexico. Given how far north we are here we should have much harsher winters more akin to yours, but those warm waters feeding across the Atlantic mean that I can run around a field in a pair of shorts & thin shirt chasing a ball even in January.
Can you start a series of posts about life in your part of the world? I so enjoy your writings, to have a little snipit about the goings on there every now & then would be fun.

Thanks Badger

[[JiF][AARP]Tissueman]

Badger,

I would not DELIBERATELY insult the ice breaker crew. It would be one of those unintentional insults you see in very bad movies where the professor is so interested in the primitive tribe's culture that he takes pictures of the sacred moon dance causing the tribe to believe he has captured the sun in his camera's flash. The tribe immediately attacks the professor, his loyal baggage bearers and kills everyone except the professor's beautiful daughter, the Caucasian (usually American) guide who grew up in the jungle and used to be best childhood friends with the village leader, the evil businessman who only is looking for the sacred diamond of (insert tribal name here) and is engaged to the professor's daughter and finally the American Guides sidekick friend. The friend is a cowardly, self serving low life with comic overtones that will sacrifice his life either at a choke point in the cave or just before the rope bridge that no body ever repairs so one of the boards will break leaving the professor's daughter hanging miles above the rapids below.

It would be that kind of insult, but without the whole killing everybody thing. You would step in between me and the angry crew and say something like "Hey, hold on now. He didn't mean anything. He is just an idiot. How about if I buy the next round of Canadian beer with real alcohol in it?" The ice breaker crew would break out into a short, loud sustained burst of laughter and would all pat me on the back very hard just as I was drinking from my beer causing me to spit beer all down my shirt causing more laughter. After this light scene, we'd cut to the ice breaker crew in a contrasting scene showing how dangerous their work really is. Probably something like them filling out the environmental impact statement needed to prove that breaking the ice will not endanger the Canadian Snow Squab while surrounded by anti-ice breaker activists and neutral television reporters who secretly side with the activists and try to portray the ice breaker crew in a very bad light.

Doughnut with sucrose? I'm sure I could get used to them. I'm sure they are delightful and I know if I turned it down the local tribe would take it as a terrible insult causing them to attack my luggage bearers........

[[JiF]DaftGeordie]

Now this is just a wild guess but I take it that the pub gets it's supplies by road and not sea LOL
Just one other thing I'm sure us Geordies would find such weather conditions a good reason to go down to the pub in tee shirts and shorts, to avoid any chance of over heating before we get a few beers down our necks.