Raid the North Extreme
Lightning bolts and Northern Lights
Susan McKenzie / 21.08.2003
The thunderclouds began to move in around five o’clock on the fourth day of the race, rolling black clouds that cut the sun out completely. The wind picked up, the temperature dropped a good ten degrees, a tornado warning was issued and you just knew the teams were in for it.
The top four teams were already out on the water, Team EADS and Gearsracing.com past the first portage and off Lac La Croix, Phoenix and Spirit just a few hours behind the leaders. The teams behind them had yet to transition out onto the water. And they would be in for a long wait.
In the past, boaters have been hit by lightning on Lac La Croix. “When the lightning starts, you just have to pull over and wait it out,� says Eddie Ottertail, who has lived on the lake all his life. “It’s pretty exposed out there.�
The rain, when it fell, was cold and fierce, obliterating visibility and washing out parts of the road that leads to the town of Lac La Croix, a road that didn’t exist ten years ago. Lightning bolts cracked the sky while sheet lightning combined with a hidden sunset painted the sky red.
One by one, the teams in fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth place cycle into the Transition Area at Lac La Croix. Taiga, no longer a trio but back to a quartet and racing unranked, followed by DirtWorld.com, Wild Rose, Star Choice and Wilderness Plumbers. Fudugazi arrived after the storm.
A few racers huddled under a shelter near the baseball diamond, but most made their way down to a restaurant owned and operated by Eddie Ottertail’s daughter, Cheryl.
“We came across a big moose on our way up here,� says Wilderness Plumber Laurie Chappell as she strips off her wet gear. “It looked at us, we looked at it, then it ran off and we ended up following it part of the way.�
For about four hours, Ottertail serves up hotdogs and Kraft Dinner non-stop, refusing payment for the hot food. When she ran out, the teams went to the shop next-door, bought some more and she cooked it up for them. More hotdogs, more KD, and Wilderness Plumbers’ Pat Malaviarachchi has Chef-Boy-R-Dee.
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