When I lived in Northwestern Ontario I enjoyed the many trips I made by float plane. I grew to know many of the pilots and a few became close friends.
I bumped into one, one day at a remote tourist camp. During our discussion I mentioned having had a drink recently with a mutual friend, who happened to be a Bush Pilot.
“Were you drinking at his cabin?” came the question.
“Yes I was, and it was a long enjoyable evening,” I replied.
“Then you were sharing in the train wreck booze,” he said, laughingly.
Now, I had heard many stories about this train wreck and I decided to try to get to the truth of it all. I grilled my friend of all he knew and in the weeks and months that followed I added many bits and pieces. My curiosity was never ending until I got an opportunity to drink more of the train wreck booze. By then, enough time had elapsed that my unnamed bush pilot friend felt willing and safe to fill in the blanks.
In the late 1960s a CNR freight train derailed at a point where the tracks ran along the north edge of a lake, below a tall cliff. About a dozen freight cars left the track and three or four went down into the lake. The railway cleared the damaged cars off the track and got the traffic running again in less than a day. The recovery of the remaining cars and cargo had to be done between the passage of the regular trains. First priority was to keep the traffic moving.
During the daylight hours the recovery process was intermittent. The operations were shut down before it got dark and railway guards were posted at each end of the damaged section in order to protect the cargo the smashed boxcars discharged.
While the wreck took place in a remote area it did not take long before people tried to reach the scene. Since the track lay between a lake and a very high cliff, access was limited to walking along the track and that was protected by the police. It was a nameless small lake with no cottages or even a place where a person could launch a boat onto the lake.
Once in a while a bush plane flew over and around the site as the best view was from up in the air. The singular fact that made this wreck so interesting was that two of the box cars were full of liquor. One car was completely underwater while the second was half in the lake with boxes and bottles strewn down the railway embankment. The railway was waiting for a diver to help retrieve the damaged freight cars and cargo.
In the meantime within the group of spectators many a thirsty mind was reviewing their options.
On another level, a couple of high flying minds started to put together a plan to save the booze from the watery grave. Here is how it played out.
Early one pitch black morning about 2 am, a small float plane took off from a private dock on the Lake of the Woods. The plane headed north in the darkness and before reaching the wreck site the navigation lights were turned off. From the ground the night was very dark but from the sky it was possible to see the outline of the lake but not much more.
The plane came directly towards the lake with the engine throttled back as safely as possible. The little plane drifted in over the tree tops and settle on the lake with hardly a splash. The guards on the track heard the plane go down and then listened as it idled its way to the south, farther from the tracks.
Maps coupled with previous experience on the lake led the pilots and plane to shallow water where an anchor was tossed out. The two men in scuba gear finished dressing and with their fins and air tanks in place slipped over the side into the water. Pushing off from the float plane pontoons they headed into the middle of the lake. Each carried a small underwater light and three or four old, but empty, gunny sacks.
Their compass led them north, towards the tracks. They swam slowly without making a noise but it was so dark they could not be seen from five feet away. In time they reached the north side of the lake to the east of the wreck. They then worked their way west along the embankment until they found the first smashed box car.
The guard high up on the dark railway track could see nothing in the water, let alone the lake itself. All of the liquor that had lain around the smashed boxcar had been cleaned up. The divers were looking for the second car that was under water near the first boxcar.
With the aid of their small flashlights they found the underwater target which was also broken open A large portion of the cargo was lying around it on the lake bottom. From that point on it was easy to fill each of the sacks with as much liquor as it would hold. It was all done by touch and feel in the dark and no choice was possible as to the make or type of the product. The sack tops were tied shut and left on the lake bottom.
Now the hard part began. Each diver took one sack and swam with it to the east some distance from the wreck and placed it at the foot of the railway embankment where the water was too deep for it to be seen. Once a sack was in place they went back for another. In time all the sacks were well away from the wreck so that a railway diver could not see them.
The final step was to take the last sack between them and swim with it back across the lake to where the plane was anchored. It was a simple task to load the sack, which was much heavier out of the water, into the back of the plane. Haste was the watchword because they had to take off before it was light enough for anyone to read the identification numbers and letters on the body of the plane.
When the divers and their treasure was safely stored, the engine was started and soon they were racing across the lake. The pontoon pounded the tops of the small waves as they roared into the darkness of the night. When the plane came off the water the difference between the trees and the sky could be made out. They cleared the tops of the trees at the shore of the lake and were soon many miles away.
Back at the home dock, after the plane was securely tied up, the sack of liquors was evenly divided and they headed for home. The variety of rum, scotch and gin was acceptable, once the price was considered.
At least a year passed before a small plane landed back on the same lake one bright afternoon. It slowly taxied and parked near the railway track embankment. No one was within miles to see a number of heavy sacks hauled up from the bottom of the lake and loaded into the plane, which was soon back in the air.
In the years that followed, the two pilots were always great hosts and took care that any visitor to their cabin never left thirsty. I can testify they were generous to a fault but I did not understand why until many years later.
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