We had moved to Calgary in ’99 for a career opportunity, and three years later, when that was fulfilled, we really needed to get back home. Calgary was definitely not home. So, this time, with a ’53 Ford 3-ton cabover named Homer, a ’93 Jeep Cherokee named Jippu, a factory trailer with three motorcycles, and a new bull terrier named Tigger, we did come home—to Whitehorse.
The best decision we’ve ever made—and I mean EVER—was hanging on to our property in the Yukon.
We spent the better part of a week loading and reloading Homer, lugging everything we owned out onto the lawn, trying to get it all to fit in his 14-foot grain box, then putting it all back in the house. Then reloading until I finally had to admit that my wife was right. There was no way it was all going to fit. So we pared it down, took two pallets to Byers Transport, and tried again.
We still had to send a dozen boxes to Whitehorse by bus! Aww, man!
To make it all weather tight, we glued up a framework of ABS pipe and lashed a tarp to it. By the way, CRA will not allow the cost of weather protection for your stuff as “moving expenses.”
By comparison, Jippu was easy. The Vincent, the Suzuki and the Serow on the trailer, the canoe on the roof rack; food, clothes and doggy in the back, and we were done.
The trip was mostly just very slow. I don’t remember having Homer weighed, but we were right down on the overload springs. One-hundred horsepower, a five-speed overdrive (seldom achieved) transmission and a 16,000-pound gross vehicle weight guaranteed a maximum speed of 50 miles an hour. And believe me, the mileage was and is no screamin’ hell.
Gassing up again for the umpteenth time, this time in Hythe, Alberta, we were at the pump when a guy pulled in behind us and informed us: “You know you’ve got a flat on your left inside dual, eh?”
Damn. I had the tools, alright: 20-ton jack, three-quarter-inch-drive socket set, snipe and two spares. I just really wasn’t looking forward to changing it. I could’ve spent a sleepless night thinking about it; and the next day, rassling with it.
But the kid on the pump says, “Hey, we can fix that.”
(Turns out it was also a tire shop.)
“Are you sure?” says I. “It’s a widowmaker.”
“That’s OK. My dad wants me to learn how to fix ’em.”
If speed and economy were not Homer’s forte, grunt was. We once weighed in at 21,000 pounds on the scale at the Whitehorse dump, with a load of sod for the compost pile. We used him to haul loads of manure, firewood, gravel for the driveway … and, of course, the two pallets awaiting us at Byers.
A vintage three-ton pickup, with a dump body, is a thing of beauty.
We first called him Homer because we’d had thoughts of making a motorhome out of him. But then, full frontal, he started to look more and more like Homer Simpson. Finally, rather than us taking him home, we realized that he was taking us home.
At Teslin, we agreed that we’d push through even though it was dark. We just really needed to get home.
We had a little wake-up on the hill at the Marsh Lake bridge (Yukon River Bridge). The dreaded red-and-blue flashing lights on the hill by the bridge. What‽ I was down to second gear! Just letting me know he was going by, I guess.
My friend Earle had opened the place up for us, so we just parked and grabbed the “fart sacks” and the air mattresses (looking forward to a really good sleep at home).
Well, guess what. Tigger and his puppy teeth had discovered one of the air mattresses (guess whose).
Be it ever so flat, hard and devoid of furniture, there’s no place like home!
