MOVING MOUNTAINS OF SNOW MONUMENTAL EFFORT FOR PLOWS & DIY SNOW BLOWERS. GOOD JOB EVERYONE

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

MUSKOKA — What do you do when it’s 2 a.m., the window on your snow plow is broken and the wind and snow are blowing a blizzard into your cab?

Well if you’re Charlie, who drives for Coon Bros. — and you’re facing several feet of snow on the ground and dozens of home and business customers are counting on you to dig them out of several feet of snow — you rig together a temporary piece of Plexiglas.

That’s what he did early this morning after the wind caught a small gap and whipped open the window on his cab, smashing it wide open and breaking it as it swung open.

“I’m surprised it didn’t break the back window,” the exhausted driver said 12 hours after going to work in the middle of the night and with another couple of hours yet to go behind the wheel — and his own driveway to finish clearing.

For sure he was dong his plow man’s share of the workload.

Luckily the white was light.

It was a 14-hour day today for Charlie, who started out plowing with a broken window that needed to be mended at 2 a.m. before he could begin the mountainous task of clearing dozens of home and business driveways of several feet of snow.

He was just one of a large army of commercial operators and DIY homeowners with whirring snow blowers and shovels at hand who moved mountains today.

Piles of snow few had seen in a lifetime.

Waste removal was delayed while crews focused on more important removal.

Highways and roads were, in part, open and closed throughout the day as busy municipal workers successfully concentrated on clearing a path allowing at least one lane of traffic on most street.

It was amazing in surveying streets that at the end of their drives were hills the envy of Olympic skiers.

Yet most were clear of the built-up remnants of a 72-hour storm that socked in most Muskokans temporarily.

It wasn’t short work, but had to be gratifying when the results were viewed afterwards while wiping snowy, wet brows and drying out cold hands and feet.

If there was much post-Christmas shopping it was done online. Getting it delivered is a story for another day to come with the forecast calling for a wet white.

Good luck to Charlie, who gets ‘er done good winter and summer for Coon’s — and the rest of us.

Carter Pallister and his dad Chuck were happy with the snow and looking for a trail to run their sled on.

Christmas’s silent night broke at sunrise with the steady hum and murmur of snow blowers back at work after off-and-on duty the previous 48 hours.

Rob Abbott said “I was out several times. I couldn’t get through two more feet if I hadn’t been out several times the past two days.”

For others with humble blades at the end of a stick, it was all hands on deck.

Neighbours helping neighbours.

Kyle Folz, Karlie Neal and Micala Terelly, who live in apartments above Muskoka Road in Gravenhurst were out the behind the main street business section working like a team to clear a narrow path into back.

“You can’t get a plow into our narrow laneway,” said Neal of the confined area where a couple years ago a fire out back brought about similar team work to quickly douse it and save another Gravenhurst storefront disaster.

By mid-afternoon — when a newspaper survey could be conducted thanks to Charlie digging us out — most of the cleanup was surprisingly over.

The morning must have been a beehive of activity — and cleanup crews must have been taking a few hours off resting in preparation for what lie ahead — on the ground and what is to come from the sky.

Good job everyone — practise makes perfect.

Plows were going non-stop today from one end of Gravenhurst to the other – and then more.

Inside where Christmases delayed turned into feasts for the famined, big birds emerged from ovens crisp and golden.

Hot hors d’oeuvres were passed around from one smiling face to the other. A sight that in 2020 would have been unthinkable.

A few guests still sent regrets rather than RSVPs due to RSVs, colds, the flu and even pneumonia.

So while there was much to celebrate in 2022, the tsunami of snow somehow made the holly and the mistletoe more precious and meaningful.

No doubt after a hard day out in the whiteout.

Savour the snow if you will — because flurries and snowfalls remain in the forecast for the foreseeable future.

Keep that shovel handy — you’ll still need it.

Team work makes light work found neighbours Kyle Folz, left, Karie Neal and Micala Terelly behind businesses on main street in Gravenhurst.
Head-high snow banks on Gravenhurst’s main drag drew the curious and the brave as some even came to take photos. Not all sidewalks and streets were as cleared as this trio found.
It was hard to see storefronts for the piles of wintry white, making Boxing Day window shopping hard to do.
Christmas wrapping and waste pick-up was mostly put off until next week – or when the roads can be cleared for trucks that may not return to schedule for two weeks in the case of garbage.
It’s hard to believe how much hard work went in to outdoor clearing this morning. The snow was light, but there was a ton of it.
Here comes big bird at Cathleen Clairmont’s new home at the north end of Gravenhurst, where Christmas dinner was delayed.
The Clairmont clan finally got to sit down together, with patriarch John, left, after two years.

Winter or summer Charlie gets ‘er done for Coon Brothers.

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