The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor By the time Heather Jacobson realized she had taken a wrong turn, it was too late. She was already on a remote, unplowed road outside Creighton that would prove unnavigable for her car and leave her stranded overnight. 'Nobody would have found me there,' says the Denare Beach senior and Creighton School Board trustee. Fortunately Jacobson, still spry at 72, reverted to survival mode and the following morning walked for two hours to find help. Her ordeal started last Friday afternoon, Jan. 11, when she left Creighton en route to Star Auto Body Shop in Channing. Days earlier, her car, a 2006 Toyota Solara, had been damaged in a fender bender. Jacobson, a retired teacher, planned to reach the body shop via Golf Road, the partially paved road stretching from the Creighton Freeway to Channing. But, traveling alone and unfamiliar with the road, she mistakenly turned down the gravel Westarm mine road by the McKeen's Trucking sandpits. Wrong way At first the road was plowed given its regular use by McKeen's workers. But then Jacobson hit unplowed terrain and realized she had gone the wrong way. Not only was there no place to turn around, she feared she would get stuck unless she kept moving. She hoped the road would take her to a cabin, where help would be available. Despite her best efforts, Jacobson got stuck. Using a shovel and throwing her dog's quilt under the wheels for traction, she managed to dislodge her car. She got stuck twice more, again freeing her vehicle, but she had no such luck the fourth time. After failing to clear a hill, her front end swung into a large snow bank. By now Jacobson was up to 30 kilometres away from the Creighton Freeway. See 'With...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 With no cell phone, she had no way of letting anyone know where she was. 'My feet were getting wet, I was starting to get cold, it started to snow really hard and it was starting to get dark, so I knew I had to get into the car,' she recalls. A regular traveller to La Ronge, where she is on the board of a teacher training program, Jacobson keeps winter survival supplies in her trunk. Realizing she was stuck for the night, she retrieved her two sleeping bags and wrapped herself in their warmth. By the grace of fortune, it was a mild January night of -15 _ and dropping. Jacobson slept on and off throughout the night, sporadically using her car and carseat heaters to stay toasty. 'I expected it to get colder and it didn't, so I was lucky that way,' she says. 'Someone was looking after me.' When she wasn't sleeping, Jacobson found her mind wandering. 'I spent a lot of time worrying and thinking what I had to do the next day,' she says. The next day arrived with daylight around 9 a.m. Jacobson left a note on her windshield explaining what had happened, lest searchers find her car without her in it. She embarked on foot down the long, treacherous road that had betrayed her the previous afternoon. Her only fuel was the bran muffin and glass of milk she had consumed the previous day, and the handful of hard candies she had in her car. Not a soul Jacobson, who stays fit through activities like swimming and skiing, walked kilometre after kilometre without seeing a soul. Covered only by stretchy yoga pants, her legs were acutely aware of the winter weather. When she came across her dog's quilt in one of the places she had been stuck, she wrapped it around her waist like a long skirt. 'That saved my legs,' she says. At one point Jacobson came across a fence, running across a side road, that bore a 'no trespassing' sign. Not knowing where the road led, she decided to stay on her path. At times her thoughts turned to worst-case scenarios. 'But you know, I kept calm all the time that I was out there,' Jacobson says. 'I just kept thinking, 'What do I have to do?'' Finally, about two hours and 10 to 15 kilometres later, she caught a break. 'I heard something and I thought I was imagining it. I turned and this white truck was coming down the road, so I flagged it down,' Jacobson says. In the truck were Howard Parlow and his son Jason, employees of Rodren Drilling, which has an ore drill down the road. 'We thought it was kind of strange that she would be out there, so we definitely decided to stop and see what was up and we found out that had happened,' says the elder Parlow. Still 15 kilometres away from the Creighton Freeway, the Parlows wanted to take Jacobson straight to the hospital. But she insisted on first going to the Creighton RCMP detachment. She knew people would be looking for her. It was at the police station that she learned just how long and hard both the Mounties and concerned citizens had worked to locate her. 'Grateful' 'That made me feel really grateful and happy,' says Jacobson. 'I just couldn't believe that they would go to that much trouble to find me.' After feeding Jacobson some much-needed food, police took her to the hospital, where she was released _ perfectly healthy _ later that day. So impressed was Jacobson with the RCMP that she wrote a letter of commendation singling out constables James Jean-Louis, Jason Collen and Scott Stuart as well as Sgt. Mark Svaren. '(They) went beyond the call of duty searching for me while I was stranded,' she says. Though it was quite a trial _ one she would rather not repeat, naturally _ Jacobson is already able to poke fun at herself over the experience. 'The police told me I did everything right _ except go on the wrong road in the first place,' she says with a laugh.
