4th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group

I couldn't do much else all day yesterday but watch the Rangers' website. I didn't want to miss their approach. But they seemed to be taking forever. At one point Art made a quick trip to town and it's a good thing he did because there was flagging all along Savory Road and a big red arrow spray painted on a snow bank at the end of our driveway directing the group along the road. They weren't going to come through our fields after all. I was somewhat dissappointed. Maybe one of the neighbours refused passage.

So, I kept an ear open because I figured it would be impossible to not hear 35 snowmobiles approaching. After all, the local yahoos can be heard for miles when there's only 2 or 3 of them. Their machines have that terrible ear shattering wale that bounces all down the valley (I abhor that racket).

I kept listening and watching, but only every once in a while there'd be a faint far-off sound of a skidoo. When their SPOT showed that they were just 2 km away, we hopped in the van and went down to the end on the driveway.(green box - our land, red circle - our house, black dotted line - pipeline (original route), orange symbol - Rangers' location, blue arrow - us)
Armed with 2 cameras and a camcorder, Art and I perched ourselves and waited. Savory Road does a little curvy thing right where our driveway comes out, so it was a good vantage point. After a few minutes some machines came along, but only 5 or so. A few minutes later, another 5. And they were ever so quiet. Turns out they broke into smaller groups to travel and we'd caught only the last 2 groups. Missed everybody else. DRAT! Oh well, we got some good pictures.I felt very proud to see these people. If we were ever lost in the barrens, these are the guys that would come looking for us. They get my respect, admiration and support. Cops, too. Totally.

And it was so nice to have 35 snowmobiles go through and we hardly even knew it.