ROAD WORK

Ben Robicheau

Spring is on the way and with it comes the annual road closures, frost heaves, broken pavement and potholes. As annoying as it might be to have your front wheel dropping unexpectedly into a crater that just appeared overnight, the roads are still better than they were before pavement brought the Islands into the age of modern transportation. Fifty years ago a simple trip up the Island could be an ordeal for both man and machine.
Driving challenges changed with the seasons. In winter there were the frozen ruts to contend with. It was not unusual for the roads to thaw for several days in mid-winter, allowing axle-deep ruts to form, these would then freeze solid, forming a spider web of intersecting tire tracks. A driver trying to negotiate his way through this icy maze would pick the most likely looking ruts to follow. It was important to choose the correct set of grooves because once committed to a certain set of ruts it was often difficult, if not impossible, to get out of them again. Occasionally you would be steered in a direction you didn’t necessarily want to go, like into the ditch. Sometimes the ruts would diverge causing your front wheels to try to go in opposite directions and your car to shimmy frantically from side to side as if trying to decide which wheel to follow, this was not exactly great for your wheel alignment.
In the springtime all cars became the same shade of mud brown as warmer weather brought large murky puddles that looked like they could be home to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. There were also several “soft spots” that year after year ate up truckloads of gravel but never seemed to get any firmer. Drivers would zig-zag back and forth across the road trying to pick a fairly solid route that could get them through to the other side without sinking up to the rocker panels.
Summertime brought drier roads but drier roads also brought dust and flying stones. Nearly every vehicle had a broken headlight, cracked windshield or occasionally even a punctured radiator from rocks thrown by passing traffic. If the weather was dry cars were followed by swirling clouds of dust which covered every surface and every passenger in a gritty film. If it was wet the roads were greasy and your windshield was periodically covered in a muddy spray thrown up by other cars.
The Dept. of Highways did most of its improvements in summer, but by fall the roadwork would begin to deteriorate again and multiple potholes would develop, making it feel like you were driving over a washboard.
Dirt roads require a lot of maintenance and each island had its own roadmaster. For many years the roads of Westport were attended to by Brad Delaney. His main piece of equipment was a Caterpillar tractor. This was basically a bulldozer which had a powerful diesel engine and ran on steel treads, in the winter a snow plow could be attached to the front, the rest of the year it towed various pieces of road maintenance equipment. To a young boy the most interesting piece of machinery, next to the tractor itself, was the grader. This was a complicated looking long, gangly rig, with a scraping blade in the middle, two wheels in the front, two tall wheels in the back and a platform at the very back where an operator would stand. The operator was kept busy turning several adjusting wheels, manipulating a row of levers and fine tuning the blade as the grader was towed along by the tractor. For some reason the rear wheels could be leaned over to the right or left which made it look like it was crabbing sideways as it rolled down the road.
The grader was only brought out after the roads had reached a certain level of decrepitude, so it was kind of exciting to see bumpy, potholed dirt roads transformed into nice smooth, gravelled streets. One day after lunch Chester Lent and I were on our way back to school when we stopped to watch the grader at work. We found the fresh new gravel and the way the blade made a neat little row of dirt in the middle of the road so fascinating that we decided to follow it for a while, we were in no hurry, afternoon classes wouldn’t start for a while yet. We trailed it down the back road and up the front, mesmerised by our own footprints in the soft, freshly turned gravel. When we rolled past the schoolhouse, the operator turned around and told us it was time to stop following him and go to school. We decided he was probably right, afternoon classes were likely ready to start by now. When we presented ourselves at the door we were surprised to see that school had already begun. We explained to Mrs. Garron that we were late because we had been following the grader. She just sighed and said that we might as well come in and take our seats. Assuming we were only a few minutes late we sat down and were just getting out our books when the bell rang. School was over for the day! We had spent the whole afternoon transfixed by the operations of the road grader.
A couple of times a summer, usually right after the roads had been graded, a tanker tuck would arrive on the island and spray the roads in an attempt to keep the dust down. We didn’t think much of it at the time, but they were spraying hundreds of gallons of used oil on the road. Years later it turned out that there was a good possibility that the chemical cocktail they used included transformer oil, or PCBs, now considered a hazardous material. A small spill of this product today is treated as an environmental and human health disaster and is handled by specially equipped biohazard teams.
For many years Brad’s Caterpillar tractor was the most powerful machine on the Island. If you needed a piece of equipment moved, a snowdrift pushed aside or a car pulled out of the ditch, Brad’s tractor could do it. It was a very rare situation that couldn’t be resolved with the brute strength of that diesel engine. I happened to witness one of those rare occasions when Brad and his machine were forced to give way to an older technology.
In those days a few of the local fishermen would haul their boats up onto the safety of dry land for the winter. One fall day I was watching a group of men struggle to get one of these boats up the beach. They were positioned on either side of the hull, balancing it on its keel while Brad and his tractor pulled from the bow. Unfortunately, things were not going well, the beach was fairly steep at this spot and it was covered with flat stones. The steel tractor treads were slipping and spinning and the boat was not budging. This futile struggle had been going on for some time and the tired and frustrated men were shouting helpful, and some not so helpful, suggestions at Brad who was constantly jogging back and forth and left and right, trying to get some traction.
While all this was going on, Gerald Morrell happened along with his team of oxen. He stopped to see what all the commotion was about and some of the men suggested that he be given a chance to see if his animals could do any better. Brad was sceptical, if his machine couldn’t move this boat, then no animal was going to be able to. After a few more unproductive attempts, he reluctantly unhitched his tractor and the oxen were hooked up in its place.
Watching these huge animals, it was apparent that they knew exactly what their job was. Once they were attached to the boat, you could see them lean into the yoke, getting a sense of the load they were being asked to pull. They shuffled around, looking for solid footing among the beach rocks. Gerald patiently stood and waited for his team to get ready, then he just spoke a command and flicked their rumps with his whip. As a couple of thousand pounds of oxen put their weight into the job, you could hear the creaking and straining of the leather yoke straps and the grinding of the beach stones under their hooves, but the boat didn’t move. Brad was just starting to say, “I told you so”, when the pair repositioned themselves, lowered their heads, and then lunged ahead, pulling the boat with them. One step, then another, and then straight up the beach, across the road and into the field. Amid the cheering of the relieved group, Gerald just smiled, unhitched his team and continued on his way. – brobicheau@cogeco.ca