(Continued from Lost in The Barrens)
The next morning, after a huge breakfast, we went ice fishing on the lake outside Boogie's cabin. His son Lucky and I drilled holes in the thick ice side by side, unwrapped the strings from our fishing sticks and began jigging the shiny spoons in the dark water below. For some reason we weren't very lucky in our fishing, which I found comical considering I was fishing with Lucky. An hour or so passed and Lucky came over. "I'm bored," he said. "We should maybe do something." "Like what?" I inquired. "Maybe we ride your Ski-Doo." I agreed that we could use a break and fired up the Ski-Doo.
"Where should we go?" I asked. "Up there," Lucky yelled over the engine, pointing to a hilly area covered in small willow bushes. As we began to climb the hill the snowmobile bogged down in the soft spring snow and we began to sink. "Go faster," Lucky shouted. I gave it more throttle and we shot up the hill, the skis gliding on top of the snow's surface again. A second later, I screamed in horror, "Jump!" We both leapt from the Ski-Doo as it left the edge of a bluff into the air. We tumbled some fifteen meters down the steep snowy slope, slowed by the willow brush we crashed through on the way down. There was a sickening crunch and a few thuds as the snowmobile hit the ice and bounced several times. Fearing the worst I walked over to my machine. The engine had died and pieces of it were lying on the ice. "Wow, good thing it land on the track," Lucky exclaimed. The windshield and fiberglass cowling had been held on with rubber bungee fasteners. I clipped all the pieces back on, fired it up and took it for a quick spin around the lake. It seemed none the worse for wear. Lucky hopped on and we went around the tip of the peninsula back to our fishing holes. "How come you told me to drive off that cliff?" I inquired. "I thought you would know the area around your cabin." He just shrugged and laughed, "Guess I forget about that place." "Well, that about does it for the excitement for today," I joked.
