REFLECTIVE MOMENTS

Whippersnapper hears power failure tall tale

It isn’t officially winter yet and already we will have stories to tell the youngsters in years to come about the hardships we faced in the late fall of 2018. “Why young Johnny, you haven’t had a real experience with Mother Nature yet. This weather here is nothing like what your family endured in that fall of 2018,” that unlucky youngster will be told by For Moose Jaw Express an older person in his life.

He will learn that on Dec. 4, 2018, at 9 a.m., the electricity went off right in the middle of the morning coffee break, plunging most of the province into the grey darkness of minus 10 weather.

“The rime frost on the trees attached to the power lines, causing them to sink and break and to send signals to the power plants that they should shut down to protect the system from further damage. But we didn’t know what was happening, especially those of us who didn’t have all the Apps on our phones to tell us what was happening.

“And we couldn’t get through to SaskPower to let The Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) wants to join the court battle against the federal carbon tax. APAS has asked for intervenor status in the court case being supported by the provincial governments of Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick and now British Columbia.

British Columbia’s argument is for a uniform carbon tax in all provinces. APAS President Todd Lewis said the carbon tax will increase farm costs without solving carbon emission problems. Farmers and ranchers sequester millions of tonnes of carbon by management practices, he said, and that should be recognized “as more important than tax policy someone know we didn’t have lights or heat because either the line was busy or some mechanical voice came on to tell us to be patient, that line people were on the job.

“The neighbours weren’t home so we couldn’t ask them what to do either. Talk about being isolated among thousands of people.”

At this point, young Johnny is looking furtively for a way to escape this story from the oldtimer, but he doesn’t want to be rude, so there he stays, listening to the tale of the olden times, learning about the day the power went off.

“How long was the power off?” he asks.

“It was off for six long hours. And that included lunch time and the afternoon coffee break. We whipped up some sandwiches for lunch and opened the fridge door just a little ways to get the milk out. We didn’t want our food in there to thaw. But we had no way to heat water for coffee and when it is cold outside, you don’t want to drink anything that isn’t hot, or at least warm. “But we heard on the battery-operated radio that the hospital could provide a hot drink in the cafeteria, but that meant we would have to go outside and get even colder.

“At that point we figured we should try using our cellphones to call the family, but we noticed both of the phones needed to be charged. That settled it: we had in solving the problem.”

He noted Saskatchewan has 43 per cent of Canada’s cropland and 37 per cent of grasslands.

Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Government has introduced a Climate Resiliency Framework instead of a carbon tax. The framework will measure agricultural land with nutrient stewardship, greenhouse gas emissions from government buildings, provincial, forest harvest, flood plain mapping and wildfire management. The plan includes reducing emissions in electricity, oil and gas and industries that emit more than 25,000 tonnes a year. Greenhouse gas emissions are supposed to be reduced by 12 million tonnes by 2030.

Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@ sasktel.net to get out to the car and the in-car charger so for an hour we drove up and down the empty streets, carefully watching the gas tank indicator because if we ran out of gas, there was no place to get a fill-up. As the needle headed left, we checked the phone and saw it was at 65 per cent, enough to get us through to the next day, if necessary.

“It was a cold, scary day without television, our computers, our microwave, the stove. But luckily, we had lots of batteries for the flashlights and the transistor radio, and cans of salmon and beans and Spam and loaves of bread so we wouldn’t starve, and we had longjohns and extra quilts to make it through the night. “But then right when we were hunkering down, the fridge started humming and the lights came on and the furnace kicked in. What a relief to be rescued and what a nightmare that day was. Some boiling hot homemade soup for supper hit the spot.

“So you see Johnny, you should learn from the old days and remember what I’ve told you about that day in 2018. But thankfully you will never have it as hard as we did that day.”

Johnny thanked his relative for the information and hurried off, happy to escape any more stories of the bad old days.

Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net