Reay Jespersen

Given my typically late hours at work, I have every other Monday off, which is cool. My wife, Jackie, is a teacher who just started her March Break. We wanted to take advantage of the time together, so looked into taking a brief trip. However, flying in the face of all the self-hype you hear from last minute tickets to tropical destinations being uber-cheap, are… well… the facts of how expensive such trips were actually going to be. We also considered hopping down to Florida to visit Alex and Tracy for a few days, but again, the cost-to-available-time ratio was just too significant an issue.

Being the outdoorsy type she is, Jackie recommended something closer to home which would, as she and I later discussed, never (not ever) have occurred to me: dogsledding. And we wouldn’t even have to go to the Arctic, or anything. Who knew? There are a few companies around a cottage town a few hours north of here - Halibutron - which offer to teach you how to drive the sled and then let you loose on the trails. Jackie found one called Winterdance Dogsled Tours which seemed to have its game together more than any other company: they have a decent website which tells you everything you need to know, and includes a pic and personality/family history bio of each dog being used that season.

Jackie took care of all the arrangements. We’d stay at a local B&B Saturday night and do the first tour Sunday morning, leaving plenty of time to get home and head back out to meet my sisters in town from the west coast. It was perfect.

Then things took a turn for the worse…

After we were booked in for the night and for the dogsled tour, the long-range forecasts began calling for a storm to hit on Saturday, which was already brewing in Texas and headed our way. Those Texans never do anything small, of course, and this storm was no different. As the days went by and the storm got closer, we were warned that Southern Ontario was going to get a large - potentially record-breaking - amount of snow from the weather system. Closer still, and they were able to call a two hour frame in which the front of the storm would hit us. Our plan: beat the storm north, and we’ll be there before it gets bad and be in the area for dogsledding the next day. I mean, come on: dogsleds. They run in snow. We were getting snow. A lot of it. A lot of snow means a lot of good dogsledding. It’s obvious.

While the storm hit Toronto just after it was predicted to start, it was moving a good deal faster than we had thought, so we were never actually able to get ahead of it, but instead ended up driving north through it. It began to taper off for the last hour or so of the drive, but we were by no means in the clear yet.

Following the directions to the B&B given on their website, we found their measurements were rather badly off (they cited their street as 18 km out of one town, when in fact it was over 21 km… not cool when you’re in an unfamiliar area looking for street signs), and then when we did find the street, discovered it was uphill all the way, and poorly plowed. Regardless, we made it in and wedged ourselves into the snowy driveway before taking our things inside and settling in. It was a really nice place, and we looked forward to what the night and next day would bring.

The loft looks down onto the common room and deck, and out into the well-forested area just north of Haliburton

When our hosts arrived from grocery shopping, they told us about a nice place to get some dinner. On the way out we met our fellow housemates, Jason and Reagan, who would be taking the awesome garden suite (below the main level) for the night. We gave them a hand getting their car into the driveway once we were clear of it. Had I mentioned the sheet of ice under the snow in the bottom part of the driveway, which made driving in and out of it an adventure? More on that later.

Jackie and I headed out for dinner after stopping at a grocery store to stock of up on some Kawartha Dairy icecream. Next to gelato, it ranks up with Marble Slab locations in the States as some of the best icecream I’ve ever had. We hit the recommended restaurant, which was right across the street (bear in mind, Haliburton’s main strip is two blocks long and consists of one traffic light), and we weren’t disappointed. The sports bar-themed restaurant was very small town Ontario - a mix of tourists/cottagers, snowmobile drivers, and the requisite cowboy - and their food was better than I’d expected.

Just as we left, Jason and Reagan were coming in - no doubt having taken the same advice we had - and we agreed to juggle the orientation of the cars when they got back so we could be the first up and out in the morning without disturbing others.

In the mean time, we took advantage of the hot tub back at the B&B, particularly since I’d never used one outside in winter, much less during a storm. I’d pictured it being on the deck, or somehow closer than it was, but there you have ideals vs. reality again. As it was, to get to the hot tub, we had to go out the side door of the main building, along a walkway, down a set of stairs, around a paved curve, along a pathway, and up a small set of wooden stairs.

I decided if I was going to do the winter hot tub thing, I was going hardcore. My entire hot tub wardrobe consisted of my swim trunks. And with that, and my drying towel around my shoulders, I headed out through the storm to the hot water awaiting me as a reward for my idiocy bravery. Jackie, notably less hardcore but awesome nonetheless, went in her swim suit, a robe, and boots. But I love her anyway.

The good part? Getting into the tub. The bad part? It being enough of a walk/run that my feet were well beyond cold and were killing me by the time I got there. And while the hot water warmed them/me up nicely, it also revealed I’d scraped my foot on the wooden stairs up into the tub. Evidently, my feet were numb enough that I hadn’t noticed when it happened. No blood, but no lack of discomfort.

Jackie, adorable as always, bearing the elements to enjoy the hot tub.

Reay, arguably less adorable but more hardcore, decides a bad winter storm won’t keep him from his duly owed soak.

We stayed in for a bit - until our towels and Jackie’s robe had just the right amount of snow layered on them to not be of much use drying off nor warming us up - and then made the mad dash back into the house and into the shower to de-chlorinate. Just as I was getting out, Jason and Reagan were back from dinner and needed me to move our car.
That was when the real fun started.

Trying to get our car out of the driveway resulted in it being perpendicular to the driveway at its lower end. That sheet of ice I’d mentioned proved a real hassle, and while scraping ice and snow off the windows every couple of minutes so Jackie could see out of it, we finally hit the right combination of Jason and me pushing the car uphill, Jackie at the helm, and Reagan throwing a salt/sand combination under the skidding tires. We got out of the way and put it in the neighbour’s unshovelled driveway, as we had permission to do, and Jason and Reagan pulled their car into the B&B’s driveway with absolutely no problem at all.

The entire process took somewhere in the neighbourhood of half an hour. To say the least, we owe Jason and Reagan a pitcher of beer in thanks.

The next morning, Jackie and I were up early (which felt earlier still due to Daylight Savings having just kicked in), and as we were gearing up for our sledding, the B&B got a call from Winterdance. The staff was at the entry road to the site, but it was totally snowed in, and they had to wait for the county plow to show up so they could get anywhere. Apparently there can be too much snow for dogsledding. Or at least getting in to do it in the first place.

The morning appointments were cancelled, and they were in the process of contacting the afternoon appointments to see who was and wasn’t showing. They said if we could be slotted into an afternoon, shift, we would be. And so we were, but due to promises to meet up with the coasties - who we only get to see every year or two - we couldn’t stick around, so we’ll hopefully get a raincheque and try to get mushing in another couple of weeks.

We had nice breakfast and chatted at length with Jason and Reagan, and everyone started packing up to head out. By the time Jackie and I were ready to roll, J & R had dug themselves out of the driveway and brushed off their car and were heading out. We began the same process for our own car, which had accumulated something in the range of 8-9 inches of straight-fallen snow at its deepest points; about an inch an hour until early the next morning.

Reay and his nine inches. Try as he might, he continues to not be a hat person.

My reach offered the quickest way to get the car uncovered with the snow brush, as Jackie dug out the thigh-high ridge of snow that the local plow had kindly heaped at the bottom of everyone’s driveway.

We took a somewhat meandering path home, with a little more time than expected on our hands, to snap a few pics (forthcoming), have some lunch, and get back just in time to dig out our carport at home. While Toronto didn’t get hit with the 50cm that some areas of the Haliburton region did, it still got its fair share of snow, which blew into the carport and loaded up the parking lot all over again. The plow that made a nominal gesture of clearing our lot had kindly heaped a nice, high ridge at the bottom of everyone’s carport.

It’s official: I’m tired of shovelling snow.