BEARDMORE — Rémy Côté says he’s now very well acquainted with an iconic Northwestern Ontario roadside attraction.
Côté says he was stuck for about seven hours in Beardmore during a long shutdown of Highway 11 on Monday.
He said he had left Thunder Bay around 7 a.m. that day with his sister-in-law to drop her off in Geraldton, when, on the way back to the Lakehead, he was forced to a halt in a long line of vehicles right in front of the Beardmore Snowman.
“I waited, and I was right in front of that snowman,” he said. “And I wait and wait and wait there for seven hours.”
“At the time, I thought he was looking at me and laughing.”
Much more seriously, Côté, who is diabetic, says he was getting concerned about the length of time he was going without food. He said he had breakfast in Nipigon on the way to Geraldton that morning when travelling with his sister-in-law, but hadn’t eaten since when he was forced to stop around 11:30 a.m.
“So, I’m kind of getting worried when I was there — (it’s) getting to 3:30 in the afternoon, 4:30 in the afternoon,” he said. “Like I said, I need food somehow.”
“All of a sudden, there was a nice, sweet old little lady there that was walking around with some food to deliver.”
Côté said he gratefully accepted a snack of juice, cookies, Pop-Tarts and chips. “Exactly what I needed — sweetness,” he said.
Turning around to return to Geraldton wasn’t an option either, he said, as by that time, the whole of Highway 11 between Nipigon and North Bay had been shut down.
“I didn’t want to turn around and lose my spot.”
Côté said he was also concerned about not wasting fuel while stuck, so he said he didn’t leave the vehicle on during the entire seven-hour wait, instead alternating having it off and on to try and keep warm without draining his gas tank.
Once traffic started moving again around 6:30 p.m., he said the highway as far as Nipigon was still snow covered.
Côté added that, after the road re-opened, he still had another roughly two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Thunder Bay. He said, initially, he was expecting to be back in the city at about 2:30 p.m.
“It was not very good at all,” he said of the experience.
