Out in the Cold, in the Middle of Nowhere
Out in the Cold, in the Middle of Nowhere
'Mike had this little jacket, running shoes, no winter gear - no warm hat, no gloves, nothing.'
Earlier this month I described an incident in which Guy’s vintage Mack truck briefly caught fire in downtown Ottawa. Sam, a mechanic who lives near Guy in Nova Scotia, received a “face full of fire extinguisher” during the scramble to put it out. Sam is adamant he and the other mechanics who kept those big rigs running couldn’t have done so without the help of a brother-sister team from Saskatchewan.
Enter Sabrina, a former seniors residence employee, who lives two hours northeast of Saskatoon. She and Joe, her truck driver brother, made a snap decision to join the Freedom Convoy after it was already underway. Driving across the prairies in his pickup, they caught up to the western arm in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Soon after they arrived in Ottawa, strangers welcomed them into their home across the river in Quebec, roughly 30 minutes from Parliament Hill. Over the next three weeks, Joe and Sabrina spent much of their time fetching truck parts for Sam and the other mechanics.
Guy and Mike were arrested shortly past noon on the first day of the police crackdown (see yesterday’s post). By the time the cops let them go, Guy's phone had run out of juice. Mike's still worked, so he called Sam, who called Joe. The Nova Scotia truckers had no idea where they were. They’d been sent out into the cold at the Conroy Public Works Yard, on the outskirts of Ottawa. During the winter, the city dumps snow at that address.
By then, Guy and Mike were disoriented. Guy says they were driven around in a paddy wagon for a couple of hours. They were taken to one police station, then another. "Then they just drove us around. They were slamming the brakes on, and flooring it, and swerving and all that stuff.” He braced himself as best he could, with his foot, in his cubicle in the paddy wagon.
As soon as Joe got the call, he told Sabrina, "Get in, we have to go." It's worth noting the temperatures involved. WeatherSpark.com, which displays historical data from around the world, employs a series of labels at the top of its graphs, ranging from cool, cold, very cold, freezing, and frigid. During the time frame in which Guy and Mike were arrested and then sent out into the weather the most extreme label applied: frigid.
With Joe doing the driving, Mike described his surroundings as Sabrina Googled landmarks. Half an hour later, they arrived at the wrong place, but they were close, maybe five minutes away. They only had room for these two truckers, but Sabrina snapped a photo of a dozen other protesters being similarly ejected outdoors. There were dozens more, she says.
"Get them in the car now," Joe told her. "My brother was pretty upset," she remembers. "They were so cold." Guy was 53 at the time, but Mike was in his sixties, and looked older due to his snow white, Santa Claus beard. Prior to his arrest he’d been sitting in his warm truck, he wasn't dressed for the elements.
Sabrina was horrified, "Mike had this little jacket, running shoes, no winter gear - no warm hat, no gloves, nothing," she says. "They looked really cold and scared. Guy had a warmer jacket on. I was more focussed on Mike, because he was older."
She herself was wearing snowmobile boots that were large for her. She tried to give them to Mike, tried to give him her mittens. "We just wanted them to get warm, we didn't know where else to take them," she explains. Which is how they ended up at the Capital City Biker's Church, 10 minutes east of Parliament. During the 20-minute drive, they let the church know others were in need, and soon a fleet of private citizens driving private vehicles had commenced rescue operations.
"When we got to the church, I quickly got them coffee and some soup to warm up," says Sabrina. The vintage Mack and the yellow Freightliner had been seized by the police, and were now impounded for a full week. All of their belongings were therefore inaccessible. Guy and Mike had the clothes on their backs, nothing more. "Others from the church jumped in to get them clothes and whatever they needed for the time being," says Sabrina.
A photo taken that afternoon shows Sabrina and Joe standing with the two truckers. Guy and Mike each hold a plastic bag containing items they’d just been given. Both look straight into the camera. Neither are smiling. In white lettering Mike's red ball cap proclaims: "Save Canada."
Guy’s trial continues today, in Room 8 at the Ottawa courthouse, 161 Elgin Street. MsCannabisCourt - who live tweeted the Tamara Lich/Chris Barber trial last week - is there keeping us apprised of what’s going on.
Another story that brings tears to my eyes - tears of gratitude for the people from the church and tears of rage for the police officers who let their sadism get the better of them with the 2 hr jostling ride and then dumping people out in the cold. SHAME SHAME SHAME on the police.