When I was 15 years old, my father and I built a snowmobile for me. I collected the parts for a Skidoo Elan, the smallest snowmobile that Bombardier ever built.
Several of the elders my family was close to had them when I was a kid; Noah Einish, Tommy Einish, Johnny Uniam… Even Giles Porlier owned a set of the newer ones. But by the time I could actually afford gas, Bombardier had stopped making them. Very few running ones were left in Schefferville.
I scrounged around everywhere to get parts.
I got a motor from McGill, a frame from the dump, bogey wheels from an abandoned house, handlebars from a pile of garbage I came across, skis from Aaron Einish’s wrecked Elan, a headlight from a ’55 schoolbus, and my mother made me a new leather seat from an old one I’d rescued from a bad encounter with a husky dog.
I named it The Monopod.
The engine was a ’77, and had been modified with the governor removed. Even in the bitter cold, with a $45 tank of gas curling up in smoke behind me, I would ride to school and park the machine proudly next to the sleek multicoloured rockets my classmates rode. I remember the vice-principal Doug racing along next to me in his Nissan, clocking my speed. 55mph, faster than any other Elan.
I remember my dad and I dragging the Monopod into the back of our pickup truck and hauling it out to our cabin at Iron Arm for Goose Break.
Aaron Einish had brought out his brand new Mach II, a sleek yellow and red beast of a machine that would be far to heavy to ever dig out, but was so powerful it never would anyway.
Elans were built to ride nimbly on top of the snow; the Mach II would just plow through it. We raced up and down the lake all week, Roger Nabinicaboo eventually joining us in his Elan. His was a newer one, and ’92, but it never had the governor taken off of it. I beat him every time.
Goose Week begins when a patch of water out past the island eventually opens up, with enough water for Canadian Geese to land. Men set up gooseblinds around the hole against the forest, and call for the geese.
You have to park your Skidoo on the near side of the island, and trek along the edge of the forest to get there; the noise of the machines would scare away the geese.
No fires to keep you warm, just hot tea in thermoses. Even conversation is kept to a bare minimum.
We kids had no interest in such stoic silence. We thundered up and down the lake near the cabins, pausing only to watch the dotted V’s make their way slowly across the warm grey April skies to the open water, and certain death. We didn’t mourn them much, we knew that soon we’d be eating them with hot buttered raisin bannock.
As the week went on, more ice began to melt on the lake in other areas. A patch opened up at the stream mouth near Tommy and Annie Einish’s cabin (Aaron’s grandparents).
This was perfect.
The narrow strait separated the nothern half of the cabin line from the southern.
Aaron thought of it first. He had seen his big brother Jeremy do it first.
Aaron gunned his engine, picked up speed, and then at full throttle, skimmed across the water.
The depth at this point was easily 50 feet, near the marshy lagoon fed by the stream.
Safely on the other side, Aaron called to us.
Roger gave me a nervous glance, but then gave the engine an extra prime, and started for the water.
His Elan reached peak speed right about when he hit the gap, but he wasn’t able to speed up any faster. The machine seemed to grow sluggish as it made it’s way across, but he was able to to reach the ice shelf on the other side just in time. He grinned at me, but his face was whiter than mine was.
I hit the brake, then the throttle, and peeled out in a 180 and took off in the opposite direction. Aaron and Roger booed and howled after me. After about 500 feet, I hit the brake and spun again, shooting back toward the gap at top speed.
My skis rattled against frozen chunks of torn up snow, and I struggled to keep it pointed in the right direction.
I hit the water.
Momentum carried me across half way, and then the Elan’s track kicked in and churned the water underneath, pushing me further forward.
The ice shelf was partially covered in the overflowing water, and I was feeling pretty good.
The shelf began to disintegrate. Chunks of ice broken up by my track began appearing behinds.
All of a sudden, the entire shelf tilted up! The weight of my Elan bore down the the shelf, swinging my end down like a see-saw! I opened the throttle up all the way.
The track kept trying to grip the wildly swinging chunk of ice, but kept breaking off!
I leaned forward, hanging over the handlebars, trying to bring more weight to keep the shelf from flipping entirely over.
The engine began to strain. I could hear the bogey wheels inside the track screeching, seizing up as ice began caking up on them.
With a lurch, the track took hold.
The Monopod crawled up the ice, and as it did, reset the balance and the shelf came crashing down in a wave of icy water. The machine pulled forward, shot over the crack, and I came skidding to a steaming smoking stop in front of my friends. The Elan, exhausted, wheezed to a halt.
I took the forest trails to get home.
That’s a little bit how I feel right now, teetering on that chunk of ice, straining with all my might to get out of certain doom.
God helped me then.
God, please help me now.
