The following is a true story, but the characters are fictional. It is based on Old Man Winter, an anonymous single-paragraph narrative of a January 1996 avalanche. The narrative was fastened to the inside wall of a 1903 snow plow at the Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum where I found it in July 2000.

This story is dedicated to the men who clear avalanches from rail lines and to the power of Nature.

In the mountains of north-east British Columbia, not far from the town of Tumbler Ridge, an avalanche roared over a rail line as dawn broke, covering it with twenty-five feet of snow and debris. It blocked the town’s supply line to Prince George, one hundred and twenty-five kilometres to the south-west.

*

Jim Smiley, the crew chief, and Fred Price, his assistant, stood together, examining the avalanche from one hundred feet away, squinting in the bright sun. Jim, Fred and six other men had stepped from a little motorized, heated speeder car that looked like a pillbox; they had driven it from the Prince George yard. Behind them, a second speeder spilled another eight workers.

Jim removed a glove, retrieved a small package from a pocket, and put a cigarette between his lips. Ignoring his doctor’s advice that a mid-fifties person should have quit long ago, he struck a match and lit it, relishing the foul sting of the smoke as it passed his tongue on its way to his lungs. He raised his head, allowing the fumes to rise straight up in gentle little blue curls, dissipating in the still air of the morning: “Ah!” and he re-gloved his hand. He knew Fred was a non-smoker, so he didn’t offer him one.

Like Fred, Jim was broad-shouldered, muscular and straight-backed. Fred wore a short goatee, saying it kept his face warm, but Jim preferred a shaven face. Jim’s physical strength, no-nonsense attitude and clear thinking made him the ideal crew chief.

The bright blue of the sky caused his eyes to water; he used the heel of a hand to clear his vision. As he had many times, once more he thought of his wife Sally, enjoying herself in tropical Barbados.

How he wanted to join her there! He promised himself that he would, soon—as soon as he had saved enough for them to live on. He hoped this would be the last avalanche season he would see. Meanwhile, he continued to send her funds which made it harder for him to save. He felt grateful that she, at least, was out of this snow-infested country.

It was only January, but the avalanche season had started in earnest. Jim knew not to be surprised, as the Tumbler Ridge area is prone to slides.

Jim ran his fingers over his square, bristled face, wondering how to get out of this latest catastrophe. Shit, he thought, forgot to shave this morning. His fingers found the little valleys that had developed there over the years. He tilted his hard hat forward and tried to tuck the cascading shocks of still-youthful black hair under it—failing as usual. He stamped his heavy boots on the snow to speed up his circulation and drew the draw-string of the bright yellow jacket tighter around him. I’m glad this thing’s waterproof.

The avalanche lay spilled over the BC Rail tracks between Bulllmoose Mountain to the north and Quintette Mountain to the south. To Jim, the slide looked like a bony monster: gigantic, uneven blocks of snow formed a spine from one end of the avalanche to the other. A scattering of splintered tree trunks reached out of the snow like frozen blackened fingers.

He narrowed his eyes against the brightness as he looked at the top of the mountain that had birthed this latest catastrophe; its sharp point stabbed the sky, covered to the top with the hard whiteness of winter’s snows. He felt as if it watched him and his tiny crew, ready to roar and send another slide toward him. A shiver of fear born of long respect rippled up his back.

Fred noticed the change in Jim’s demeanor. “You okay?”

“Of course I’m okay!” Jim snapped. At once he softened, then smiled. “Sorry, Fred. Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just these damn slides… You know.”

Fred didn’t miff easily. “Yeah, sure do.”

“C’mon. I want to see if the snow is hard or powdery.” He started walking toward the avalanche. Fred’s footfalls scrunched beside him.

When Jim reached the lip of the slide, he crouched, took some snow in his gloved hand and squeezed. The snow disintegrated into a fine dust, falling through his fingers. He noticed that Fred did the same thing about twenty feet away with the same result. He rose, walked past Fred and repeated the test.

“This stuff’s powder,” he said to Fred. He looked toward the middle of the slide, studying it, then said, “It looks fairly thick, but I’m sure we can move it with a plow. I hope it’s all powder, and we’ll have to be careful around the broken trees.”

Fred nodded.

Above, Jim noticed the fifty-thousand-volt cable that carried electricity up and down the rail line, suspended from unbroken poles. The poles leaned crazily, some inward toward the slide and others toward the tracks. The downward curve of the cable swung just above a bulldozer standing on the tracks a few feet from the slide. The company had attached a cab to the machine to retain heat and replaced the standard caterpillar treads with the metal wheels common to railway cars. A crewman had driven the ’dozer along the tracks to the site from the yard in Prince George.

Jim estimated that at least twenty feet separated the cable from the bulldozer, but it still worried him. If it broke and struck the ’dozer or the tracks, a fire or explosion would occur, with a good chance of a new avalanche and injuries among the crew clearing the present avalanche from the line.

Jim shook his head. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and crushed it into the snow. “There’s a lot of this fine white stuff,” he said to Fred. “Even if it’s all powder, there’s no way we’re gonna clear it with a ’dozer and some shovels. It’s too damn thick.”

“What are you gonna do?” said Fred.

In answer, Jim grabbed the walkie-talkie hanging from his belt, put it to his ear and said, “Scott! She’s a huge one, man! Looks like powder but solid chunks could be under it. Better get a wedge plow up here and a coupla locomotives to push it.”

“You sure about that?” Scott’s voice sounded shrill coming from the walkie-talkie’s tiny speaker.

Jim visualized his superintendent, Scott Urquhart, sitting in his dingy, grey-painted office at the rail yard. Scott’s been at this job a long time, he thought. He hates it as much as me. He knew Scott was concerned about the extra cost. “Yeah, I’m sure. That’s what we need. And as many men you can send.”

“Okay, I’ll send ’em.”

“10-4.” Jim put the radio back onto his belt. Hmm, he thought. Maybe Scott’s listening to me for a change. “Okay,” he said to Fred, “let’s get these guys workin’.” He yelled at the men standing nearby. “C’mon, you guys! They’re sendin’ up a plow and more men. Let’s see what we can do before they get here.”

*

His conversation with Scott reminded Jim of the year he started working on the avalanche-clearing team. He remembered that ten times as many men were assigned back then, fifteen years ago, and they all used picks and shovels. What back-breaking labour!  he thought. They sure weren’t the days. Maybe slides were lighter than now, yet had enough firmness that shovels were the tool of choice. Sometimes an avalanche was mainly powder, but now, slides seemed to be formed of huge solid chunks of not-quite-snow, not-quite-ice, as hard as concrete. Picks could do very little against them.

Powder was softer; a plow would push that out of the way in a short time, but Jim knew he couldn’t expect powder across the width of this avalanche—there could be large, solid chunks of ice; anyway, he knew that tree trunks were hidden in the middle. A wedge plow could shove most tree debris aside and offered much greater efficiency than a rotary plow or shovels.

*

Everyone worked at the avalanche with their shovels and picks. The bulldozer picked up large amounts of the material, depositing it beside the tracks a thousand feet behind the work site. The deep-throated sound of its diesel engine vibrated up and down the valley, echoing off the white slabs that clung to the steep sides of the mountain.

A low rumble, like a deep warning voice, issued from the mountain-side. The crew stopped working, fear sculpted on every face. While they watched, the mountain took on a fuzzy appearance and faded from view. The onrushing slide rolled like a juggernaut toward the valley, the tracks and the crew. Jim cursed. “Shit! Not another one…” Adrenaline coursed through his body. “Kee-rist! Get outa here, Fred!” He shouted, “Run, everybody!”

The action of the bulldozer moving in reverse caught Jim’s eye. He knew that the driver, Carl, was trying to get himself and the bulldozer out of the path of the new slide. A useless maneuver, he thought; it’s too damn fast. Jim’s eyes widened in horror as the sparkling white haze, made blue-white by the sun in a cloudless sky, filled his vision. The rumble grew and roared, like a monster’s maw about to swallow crew and equipment. As he watched, it hit the bulldozer broadside.

*

Jim stared as the new slide struck the bulldozer. Mixed with trees, stumps and ice, it pushed the machine sideways off the tracks. Carl would try to keep his balance, grabbing at anything to keep from being tossed about as the ’dozer started to roll down the hill. Jim heard several loud snapping, ringing sounds and thought, The tracks are tearing up, followed by pinging noises. Oh my God, the spikes are hitting the ’dozer. He imagined them penetrating Carl’s body and snow burying his corpse.

The machine rolled over and over, coming to rest on its side part-way down the embankment. Jim caught a certain stench, and for a moment his stomach heaved. The avalanche ceased and his digestive system calmed.

Jim somehow found himself unable to move, then his mouth dropped open when he saw the bulldozer’s door fly open, spraying a momentary fountain of snow into the air. Carl pulled himself through the door of the machine. He fell to the ground. For a moment, Carl lay on a patch of frozen earth that was somehow free of snow. Then he stood, looking around, as if getting his bearings; after a few seconds he moved toward the embankment and Jim lost sight of him.

The still settling avalanche obscured Jim’s vision for a moment, but he estimated where the ’dozer had stopped. His paralysis gone, he slipped and slid down the embankment on the hardening surface and found the machine. He looked for Carl but couldn’t find him. Maybe he went back in for something... He climbed up and peered into the open door. Carl wasn’t inside. Did tons of snow cover him? Jim yelled the driver’s name.
“Up h-here, on the t-track.” The snow muffled Carl’s voice, changing its familiar sound.

“Carl? That you talkin’? Where are ya?”

“Up h-here. L-look up.”

Jim raised his head and saw a yellow form lying on the track. He spotted a clear section and bounded back up the slope. His breathing was heavy when he reached Carl’s side. “You all right? Holy shit, man! You’re covered in blood. C’mon, we’ll get you to a speeder.” He helped Carl to his feet.

Carl shook himself loose from the tight grip on his arm. “It’s okay, Jim, I can walk.” Together, they walked to the speeder.

“Lie down on the bench,” Jim said, his voice soft. He poured some water from a thermos bottle onto a cloth and washed the blood from Carl’s face. A deep gash crossed the left side. He grabbed the first aid kit from under the seat, shook some medicinal dusting powder onto the wound and bandaged his crewman as well as he could. As he did so, he talked quietly to Carl. “Ya did the right thing, y'know, backing away from the slide.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll get someone to look in on ya later. For now, take it easy, will ya?”

“Sure. Um… was anybody else hurt?”

“Lucky for us, no.” He left the speeder, thinking, Sending minimum crew and equipment to an avalanche is dumb. It can cost lives. Best to send all the manpower and equipment right away to get the job done right. It even costs less.

Out of Carl’s hearing, he told Scott over the radio, “We have to be careful about how we deal with this one. I almost lost Carl today—he needs a doctor. If we get another avalanche, the whole crew could go and the company’d be in deep shit.”

“Yeah, I know… Look, don’t do nothin’ that puts the crew in danger, okay?”

“Of course. But this stuff’s so thick, I think the only thing’s gonna move it is chargin' it with the wedge plow. Head first. We shoulda had it up here right away.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll send the plow,” Scott said, sounding a bit resentful. “You’re the man at the front. I sent you a couple of locomotives. Should be there in, say, five minutes.”

When the three machines arrived, Jim ordered the plow to be attached in front. Together, they developed 6,000 horsepower.

*

Back in the speeder, Carl sat up and looked outside. His head pounded. He heard the engines start up, then their rumbling diesel sound. He had forgotten to mention the broken rails. He thought Jim must have heard them breaking, but he wanted to remind him. He scrounged the cab for a walkie-talkie, finding nothing.

“Goddammit!”

Despite his throbbing head, he flew from the speeder, arms flailing, shouting “Jim! Wait! The rails are broken…!” but the noise from the engines drowned his voice. He stopped and gaped.

Carl watched the two locomotives gain speed, pushing the V-shaped plow toward the twenty-five-foot-thick avalanche lying across the line.

*

Jim spoke to the plow’s driver over the radio. “We gotta make sure the plow cuts into the slide real good, Rick, so give it all ya got!”

 He heard a garbled reply that sounded like “…wide open.” Jim thumbed the transmit switch again, yelled “How fast ya goin’?” and pressed the walkie-talkie to his ear. Again, a faint response, “…thirty-fi…” Jim nodded to himself.

The plow easily pushed aside the first layers of powdered snow where it thinned at the tip, then drove through the thickening avalanche, exposing solid chunks of snow, ice and shattered trees under the powdery cover. It opened the slide, hurling a mixed cascade of white powder, snow chunks, branches and trunks into the air on either side. About thirty feet into the hardening whiteness, it hit the broken track and derailed. Its drive wheels screamed as they tried to slice into the frozen ground. The plow bounced on the ground, rising nose-first over the inundation, becoming nearly vertical from sheer momentum, its wheels shrieking, pushing against empty air. It slowed, giving the impression that an invisible rope or chain guided it, the sharp edge of its nose pointing to the blue sky. It hung there for an instant; then, like an old-growth tree that has just been cut, it started to slip sideways, just sliding under the fifty thousand-volt cable.

            *

Omygod! I forgot about the broken rails. Jim saw the plow arc toward the vertical, and over the walkie-talkie heard Steve Foster, the engineer of the locomotive behind the snowplow, scream for help. He must think the plow’s going to smash into him, Jim thought. Maybe the combined weight of the engines will keep them on the track. Jim was unable to move, though he tried. Where could he go, anyway? His face contorted in horror as he watched the plow in its death throes, like a liner sinking into the sea.

The coupling that connected the plow to the front engine broke with an explosive bang. Now separated, the plow and locomotives followed different trajectories. The engines, still pushing, dug themselves into the opening made in the avalanche by the plow. They also derailed and stopped at once, somehow remaining upright. The plow continued its sideways travel and, as if in slow motion, sailed through the air over the embankment. Jim’s stomach knotted as he imagined the men inside, tossed like shaken dice, trying to hang on to anything they could grasp.

The plow landed, raising a giant plume of powdered snow that glittered in the sun like a rainbow. It came to rest upside-down, pointing downhill. One by one, the three crewmen emerged through the side windows. Jim’s jaw dropped in astonishment that they were all alive. They stumbled back up the snow-bound embankment to the track.

*

On the track, Jim saw Steve heave himself through the window of the front locomotive and try to stand, but he yelled as his legs gave out. He fell on top of the powdery surface snow, which caved in under him. He slid down the embankment, and Jim winced as Steve’s head narrowly missed the plow’s wheels. He heard a faint sound and recognized Steve’s painful yell.

*

Jim raced toward the injured man. When he reached him, Steve grimaced. “My left knee's killin’ me.”

Jim tore open Steve’s pants at the damaged knee. One look told him that the kneecap had been smashed and he called for a helicopter on the walkie-talkie’s emergency channel. Then he knelt and. easing his hands under Steve’s legs, lifted him in his arms. Steve groaned. “Hang on,” Jim said. “It’s not far to the rails where the chopper will pick you up.”

“Th-thanks. I ’preciate that. Oh-h…!”

The helicopter soon arrived to transport Steve and Carl to a hospital in Prince George.

As the whop-whop of the helicopter faded, Jim started for the speeder, then stopped. He turned and stared down the embankment at the plow and bulldozer, both now silent. He shook his head at the puny efforts of his small crew to best one of nature’s most powerful forces. He admired the ingenuity of the designers of these large, powerful machines, but the avalanche had knocked them over like mere playthings. He stared at the mountain, only patches of snow still clinging to it, sparkling in the bright sunlight, almost grinning. It would take more equipment than he had to clear the slide and he knew how expensive it would be.

From the speeder, he spoke to Scott by radio. “Damn these bloody avalanches,” Scott started, then paused. “I feel sick about those two men…”

“Me, too,” said Jim. “It shouldn’t have happened.” He felt it was better not to reveal his own forgetfulness. If those men had died…

“Yeah. We’re bloody lucky no lives were lost.”

Silence at the other end made Jim wonder if he had lost contact. “You still there, Scott?”

Jim found it hard to recognize the choked voice that answered. “Yeah, still here. Wait a sec.” He heard what sounded like Scott blowing his nose. Scott said, “Okay, enough’s enough. See if you can get the bulldozer back to work and use plenty of shovels. I’ll find out if another plow and more locies are available. We’ll have to pick ’n’ peck our way out of this.”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“The ’dozer’s upside-down on the embankment and can’t be used. Get us some real heavy equipment, Scott. Then we can do the job right and not hurt or lose anyone.”

A momentary silence. “Yeah. You’re right, Jim. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“Just do it, man.”

“I will, Jim. I can’t stand this feelin’ in my gut. I will, I promise.”

Jim said good-bye and buckled the radio to his belt. Pick ’n’ peck, my ass! he thought. He felt exhausted and strangely exhilarated at the same time, but he and the crew had a vital job to do.

Suddenly, he made his decision: The world can split open tomorrow, he thought, but this is the last avalanche I will ever clear. Get ready, Sally, here I come.

Jim breathed deeply, smiling, feeling happy. He stepped from the speeder, took in the solid blue sky pierced by the surrounding peaks, glanced at the now-bare mountain and walked back to the avalanche, a certain perkiness in his step.