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Out of the mire and safe again

Rescuers confident no one left stranded on soggy winter roads

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 03/21/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Everyone stuck on soggy winter roads in northern Manitoba over the last few days is now safe and accounted for -- but some may owe their lives to rescuers who picked them up along the way.

Some people travelling back to their First Nations might not have made it had truckers not come along and found them, said a weary George Leonard, provincial search commander with Manitoba Search and Rescue. Leonard has spent much of the past few days in helicopters, swooping down each time he spotted vehicles stuck in the mud.

People were stuck in the mire of melting winter roads for days, and some hadn't let anyone know they were taking a winter road, Leonard said Saturday night.

"Those truck drivers saved some of those people's lives."

"Some people we ran into had been on their own for five days -- they weren't sure anyone was coming," said Leonard, who works as a band constable with several First Nations.

Shaun Buss of Beausejour drove north on the winter roads Saturday to take fuel and food to his brother and three other truckers whose tanks were almost bone dry.

"I met them about 10 to 15 kilometres in. Conditions were severe -- it was a hard ride," Buss said.

Buss said his brother had left St. Theresa Point, 460 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, last Sunday night and eventually linked up in an 18-truck convoy.

The truckers siphoned fuel from each other, shared food and water and had satellite phones, Buss said.

His brother told Buss "The whole way was just treacherous."

Meanwhile, a convoy of 30 trucks slowly made its way south Saturday from Bloodvein First Nation along newly refrozen but badly rutted winter roads, after pulling into Bloodvein in two groups at 3 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Two trucks were still stuck about 35 kilometres north of Bloodvein, but the drivers are doing fine, said RCMP Sgt. Line Karpish. "The Bloodvein band was going to work on the road -- the hard ruts are the issue," she said.

Karpish said the truckers who arrived in Bloodvein overnight took a group of residents from the Garden Hill and Island Lakes First Nations who were stuck earlier at Thunder Lodge on Wrong Lake.

Karpish said the group left Saturday headed for Pine Falls. "They're not moving fast," she said, estimating the group was travelling, at best, about seven kilometres per hour.

"They're going to hit solid ground (at Pine Falls) -- they'll scatter," she said, though Leonard said some may have been able to rejoin regular roads by breaking off for Berens River or Riverton.

Leonard said everyone involved in winter roads needs to talk -- and talk soon -- about how to handle unexpected thaws.

"We're going to figure out what went right and what went wrong, talk to the grand chief and come up with a better plan," he said.

"The information isn't always accurate right away," he added.

Earlier in the week, when it first became clear people were somewhere out on the winter roads and overdue, "We had discussions with some communities and some chiefs.

"We weren't sure how many people were out on the roads," Leonard said.

Helicopters spotted and landed to check on four convoys. "We flew the entire route. You should have seen the trucks -- they were just covered in ice.

"There are still various vehicles left on the road," he said.

The sudden loss of the winter roads to an early melt left many northern bands short of the food, fuel and other vital supplies they normally have trucked in during the winter.

However, the federal government announced Friday it would airlift in some supplies.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 21, 2010 A3

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