That was my first comment when I spotted it: I want that driftwood! I actually said it aloud, even though I was alone.
I work the occasional shift at a remote northern jobsite, three weeks at a time. The location is near a typical large northern river, a raging torrent of water lined with rocks and boulders ranging from pebble-sized to truck-sized. Trees, limbs and stumps are carried along and litter the shoreline in vast numbers. Lots of nice pieces of driftwood for the taking...but collection is against site rules, and even if you got a piece...how would you get it home? It's a one-hour shuttle bus trip to the airstrip...that's airstrip, not airport...followed by a 1.5-hour flight back to "the world". Security is tight.
So, the other day I was travelling from one end of the site to the other, and was forced to stop alongside the road (broken rule #1) to gape in astonishment at what I saw down the steep bank beside the river. There, perched where the lowering waters had deposited it, was the most spectacular piece of driftwood that I have ever encountered in decades of collecting the stuff. It was a massive, gnarled, twisted section of roots, studded with embedded chunks of granite, a self-contained labyrinth of holes, passages and cavities. It looked to be about 5 feet long by perhaps 2 wide and 3 deep; it would have been perfect in a big tank, or even in my inground backyard pond. It was scoured clean by the rushing waters of anything resembling bark or soft tissue, and it had that almost-whitish colouration of wood that has been waterlogged and then sun-dried. It was perfect.
I had to have it.
I began my plotting and scheming immediately. A quick perusal of Canada Post's fee schedule indicated that sending it by mail from the nearby native community was out of the question; other options were needed. A teamster friend was recruited to transport it from the river to the camp perimeter gate, a distance of roughly 10km (broken rule #2). From there, another friend who lived locally would shoehorn it into his car (!) and take it home with him, where a third friend (a long-distance trucker) would strap it onto the back of his tractor/trailer (broken rule #3) for the 10-hour return drive to the southern part of the province, where I would take possession of it after my rotation in the north.
So, I had three people all questioning my sanity, but all willing to assist me in my mission. All that remained was to retrieve it from the riverbank and get it up the embankment to the road. A foggy dawn promised to partially conceal our larcenous activities, and in the pitch-dark of pre-morning I and one of my partners in crime rolled up to the closest possible driving approach to the wood. We picked out way down the steep slope and along the roiling water; it was too dark to see it until we got closer and we had perhaps 300 meters of ankle-twisting slippery broken rock to traverse. We had some rope, an axe and a prybar; the going was slow. We seemed to be walking a long, long way...
The sky was just starting to brighten in the east when we rounded the last few boulders and my prize finally came into view. Up close, it was even more beautiful than it had appeared through my little pocket binoculars. It was magnificent, a wonder of arched, twisted, water-smoothed intertwined wood.
And it was over 12 feet long, probably weighed over 400 pounds. A couple of the rocks embedded within it were the size of basketballs. With nothing of known size to offer perspective, I had grossly underestimated its size from my elevated distant observation point. My dreams were dashed.
I still had to buy my partners-in-crime their promised beers...but the wood remains where I found it.
To paraphrase John Wayne: Life is tough. It's even tougher when you're crazy.
I work the occasional shift at a remote northern jobsite, three weeks at a time. The location is near a typical large northern river, a raging torrent of water lined with rocks and boulders ranging from pebble-sized to truck-sized. Trees, limbs and stumps are carried along and litter the shoreline in vast numbers. Lots of nice pieces of driftwood for the taking...but collection is against site rules, and even if you got a piece...how would you get it home? It's a one-hour shuttle bus trip to the airstrip...that's airstrip, not airport...followed by a 1.5-hour flight back to "the world". Security is tight.
So, the other day I was travelling from one end of the site to the other, and was forced to stop alongside the road (broken rule #1) to gape in astonishment at what I saw down the steep bank beside the river. There, perched where the lowering waters had deposited it, was the most spectacular piece of driftwood that I have ever encountered in decades of collecting the stuff. It was a massive, gnarled, twisted section of roots, studded with embedded chunks of granite, a self-contained labyrinth of holes, passages and cavities. It looked to be about 5 feet long by perhaps 2 wide and 3 deep; it would have been perfect in a big tank, or even in my inground backyard pond. It was scoured clean by the rushing waters of anything resembling bark or soft tissue, and it had that almost-whitish colouration of wood that has been waterlogged and then sun-dried. It was perfect.
I had to have it.
I began my plotting and scheming immediately. A quick perusal of Canada Post's fee schedule indicated that sending it by mail from the nearby native community was out of the question; other options were needed. A teamster friend was recruited to transport it from the river to the camp perimeter gate, a distance of roughly 10km (broken rule #2). From there, another friend who lived locally would shoehorn it into his car (!) and take it home with him, where a third friend (a long-distance trucker) would strap it onto the back of his tractor/trailer (broken rule #3) for the 10-hour return drive to the southern part of the province, where I would take possession of it after my rotation in the north.
So, I had three people all questioning my sanity, but all willing to assist me in my mission. All that remained was to retrieve it from the riverbank and get it up the embankment to the road. A foggy dawn promised to partially conceal our larcenous activities, and in the pitch-dark of pre-morning I and one of my partners in crime rolled up to the closest possible driving approach to the wood. We picked out way down the steep slope and along the roiling water; it was too dark to see it until we got closer and we had perhaps 300 meters of ankle-twisting slippery broken rock to traverse. We had some rope, an axe and a prybar; the going was slow. We seemed to be walking a long, long way...
The sky was just starting to brighten in the east when we rounded the last few boulders and my prize finally came into view. Up close, it was even more beautiful than it had appeared through my little pocket binoculars. It was magnificent, a wonder of arched, twisted, water-smoothed intertwined wood.
And it was over 12 feet long, probably weighed over 400 pounds. A couple of the rocks embedded within it were the size of basketballs. With nothing of known size to offer perspective, I had grossly underestimated its size from my elevated distant observation point. My dreams were dashed.
I still had to buy my partners-in-crime their promised beers...but the wood remains where I found it.
To paraphrase John Wayne: Life is tough. It's even tougher when you're crazy.
