The boghole

99% of my 4 km of road to Highway 20 is dry.  But in one shady spot there are two horrendous bogholes.  So far, the new truck has managed to drag itself through them.

This is what it looked like after a neighbour (who lives an hour to the east) got stuck.  He drove to my house in the morning on a hard frost.  But he left around 2:00pm.  About an hour later, he was walking back into my yard.

I drove down with the truck and tried to pull him out backwards, but his suburban was too heavy.  The engine block was sitting right on the mud.  There looked to be room to squeeze past – which I managed after several tries, but as my visitor said, I was so close I managed to scrape some of the mud off the side of the Suburban.  But I couldn’t pull him out from the front either.  We tried my trusty come-along, did lots of digging, and cut trees to try and lever the vehicle up, but the Suburban would not budge.  In the end I drove to the nearest neighbour about 20 minutes drive away and fortunately found him working in his yard.  He had a bigger truck and we loaded the back with concrete blocks to give it weight.  After about two hours, my visitor was pulled out.

We drove back home through the boghole with trepidation but no problem.  Wolf took the truck for a day trip and once again went out and back.

Yesterday, we went to Tatla.  The mud was much sloppier at the edge where I had gone before.  I gunned the motor and slithered through: unfortunately I was driving with the window half open.  Mud flew inside all over my town clothes and the truck interior but I did not dare stop. (You can see the contrast between the mud on the window and the part that was protected by the door.)

Near the highway we found a puddle and slung buckets of water to clear the windshield and mirrors so that I could drive.

We went to Nimpo and then to Tatla and returned home about 8.00pm.  A few yards into the boghole, the truck sank.

I could not open the drivers door so had to crawl out on the passenger side.

We tried the come-along once without success, but I didn’t want to spend too much time on it as it was an hour’s walk home and I wanted to try and phone for help before it was too late.  (A call after 9:00pm in this part of the world is not good manners.)

Fortunately, I got hold of Len Lamothe, who pulled my van out of the ice puddle about 5 weeks ago.  He arrived in his (very clean!) truck at 8.00:am this morning.

Fortunately, he had a firm place for his vehicle.  Unfortunately, my truck is now stranded on the highway side of the boghole.  We had loaded it with drinking water: the pond is not fit to drink: even when boiled long enough to make it safe, it tastes of swamp.  The river is not too bad at the moment, although it also needs boiling, but it almost a kilometre away and the only way to carry it from there is by backpack or hand.  On the dusty road to the boghole, we can at least use the wheelbarrow and take two 5-gallon jugs at once.

If only we could have got the truck home last night!  This morning I learned that the van is fixed.  Friends will be bringing it out from town in a couple of days.  It would have been great to have a vehicle on both sides of the hole.  But now I will have two vehicles stranded an hour’s walk from home.  Who knows when the boghole will be fit to drive through again?  People at a small community at the north end of Nimpo Lake have been cut off with a similar situation for  weeks.

2 thoughts on “The boghole”

  1. Hi Chris, sorry and happy to see that you are moving on, last summer we were truck camping in your area, well sort of, we camped at Horn Lake, it had the least bugs!
    Our group enjoyed the trip and the stay with some of us chartering a Beaver at Nimpo and having a snoop around, and managed to get a quick pass over your place, sorry for the all the noise and racket.
    We also got to do a nice trip into Bella Coola for a bit of a shop soveneers and some food for camp we picked up on the way back. We did stop to watch a black bear along side the road munching on the greenery and paying us very little attention we got our photos and moved on to the pass and back to camp after dark.
    This thing about getting stuck in the mud must be getting old now, you need to get a winch (8,000 lb to 10,000 lb pulling power) for what you have there, also a snatch strap (acts like a big elastic band 20′ to 30′ use with 2 trucks) and a tree protector strap like a snatch strap but smaller to save the bark on a tree when using a winch or come-along, these may save your life or someone else. You’ve probable have heard all this before anyways, ditching the road gravel and rock fill, I also know all that stuff is expensive too, I’d do the winch and straps for sure. The winch could be mounted on a bar and used on the front or back of the truck when plugged into a heavy duty trailer hitch receptacle on the front and back of your truck. Simple!
    You love the place and it shows with your writing, photos and life style, and thank you for sharing it with so many of us for all these years, and I hope to see more in the future.
    I live in North Vancouver and did see you at the library in the Village off Capilano Rd, that was a couple of years ago for slide show and talk.
    Sorry I/we didn’t make it to your cabin for a bit of a walk and to sample your home made bread.
    Looking forward to the next story, take care and enjoy discovering it!

    Cheers
    Randy Zarowny

  2. Sorry, but I really like the part of you driving through the boghole with the window half open 😉

    No, honestly, what a mess. I hope your road dries out soon now.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge