Trumpeter serenades stranded drivers on Trans Canada Highway during snowstorm
When life hands you a snowstorm, throw a concert.
That’s what one driver stuck west of Calgary did on Tuesday, entertaining motorists for hours with a one-off roadside performance.
Hundreds of vehicles came to a standstill Tuesday along the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary following multiple crashes amid a record-breaking October snowfall.
The highway was closed in both directions on Tuesday and reopened Wednesday, but some drivers were stuck for nearly 12 hours.
Mackenzie Murphy was headed to Banff from Airdrie with her boyfriend Tuesday morning.
Murphy said the early morning flakes were “nothing that we hadn’t seen before,” as the pair hit the road around 6:30 a.m., “taking it slow and steady” for a followup doctor appointment for her boyfriend’s recent knee surgery.
But when they got back on the Trans-Canada to make their return trip, they realized how serious the storm was.
“We started heading back around 10:45 and hit the traffic, it was just this endless line,” Murphy said. “Next thing you know we’re sitting there for 10 and a half hours . . . it went on for miles.”
Murphy said some drivers who encountered the standstill tried turning around only to get stuck in the ditch, including world-renowned trumpeter and Order of Canada recipient Jens Lindemann. “A whole bunch of guys came and helped get him out of the snow . . . and out of celebration he pulled out his trumpet,” she said.
Lindemann, a Grammy and Juno award nominee who’s played for Queen Elizabeth II and trained at the Juilliard School in New York, entertained some of his fellow drivers and even offered them “tickets for life to any of my concerts.”
“Anyway, we’re stuck out here trying to make the best of it,” he said in a roadside video captured by Murphy.
“Wish you weren’t here!” He even performed a rendition of O Canada to a backing chorus of honking car horns.
After more than 10 hours on the roadside, Murphy and her boyfriend decided to head west and spent the night at Banff ’s Ptarmigan Inn.
But hotels in Canmore were completely booked Tuesday night, the town said on Facebook. Canmore Collegiate High School was transformed into a warming centre overnight.
Between 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Cpl. Laurel Scott said, Mounties responded to 83 crashes in southern Alberta, despite issuing multiple warnings for drivers to avoid highway travel.
Around 8:30 p.m on Tuesday, the Didsbury Fire Department closed the QEII highway in both directions near Carstairs due to a fatal collisioninvolving25to30vehicles.