The Ford Barn - Model A ???

A few years back I had employment rebuilding the dam at 1st Connecticut Lake in upstate Cow Hampshire. This was during the summer when construction could be done at that remote location.

With time on my hands I got friendly with the "gatekeeper" who was in charge of manipulating the gates and maintaining the water level of that first in line lake of the Connecticut River.

Commenting on even summer weather, he regaled me with stories of the winters at 1st Connecticut Lake - including the almost annual fatality which occurs on the lake because of high speed snowmobile operation.

Some, like the Darwin aspirant above, come armed and ready for their life changing experience on the lake. Speeds upwards of 70 mph are common, and some particularly modified machines do upwards of double that.

BUT - and this is the Darwin part - the lake is known for "rifts" and shifting of the level surface - to the point of upwards of 3 or 4 feet displacement. The gatekeeper could give no explanation for this phenomenon except possibly the wind, or an imbalance in the ice thickness caused by underwater springs.

These rifts come and go - and just as suddenly appear in a different spot.

And the gatekeeper is not amused to hear people unloading their snowmobiles late at night at the boatramp - and then roar off at high speed assuming the lake to be level and free passage.

He explains he sits there in his bed late on a still night hearing the sound of a snowmobile motor at distance flogging the occupants to wherever they are going...

...and then just as suddenly hear nothing.

And he knows he has some clean-up work to do in the morning.

That if there are no survivors. The survivors call on their cell-phones and the cruiser/ambulance team drive right out onto the ice in the dark demanding his witness to the carnage.

Too much beer combined with too much hubris and horsepower, he said.

Joe K