Ice Day

Today I did a first and drove my car across a river. I really am not fully conversant with how thick the ice needs to be to do this but everyone else seemed to be doing. I could see the highway across the river and knew this short-cut would shave at least twenty minutes off my journey back to Montréal.
In the summer this river has a small ferry shuttling back and forth, something I tried once but by the time you have waited for the boat, got the car on and off, you haven’t saved any time so I never bothered after that. Normally I do this journey at night an whizz pass the slip road to the river without any attention. Today I braked a bit too sharply when I saw the temporary sign, “Ice Bridge”. A well trod route from one side of the river to the other, with poles marking the parts of the ice you must not cross. Outside the crossing boundary were plenty of little fishing huts temporarily erected on the river where people have little fires and keep their bait and tackle, drilling holes in the ice for the rich pickings of hungry fish in winter. Further along these huts almost form little villages complete with cars parked outside and all slap bang in the middle of the river. People coming and going to these communities on cross country skis, Snowmobiles and even small trucks.
I pulled up to the booth, there is a $3 charge to cross the river, and tried to ask the French toll-keeper if I could get to the 401, which confused her as I meant the 417 – the 401 is the Montréal Toronto highway and I was midway between Ottawa and Montréal. After a bit of strained Quebecois French and lots of apologies I was told I would be on the highway in minutes.
Ahead of me was a red compact size car about the same size as mine and obviously used to this journey. It rolled confidently on to the ice and seemed to speed across the river. A red rolling stain on the grey-white. I drove down the river bank and easily fought my logic alarms screaming how stupid it was to drive a car on the ice. My car has an external temperature gauge that read –5 celsius, cold enough to freeze water but comparatively warm for this time of year in this part of the world( Two weeks ago it was –35C) . My mind immediately remembered a recent story about a couple of people who died on their snowmobile on the ice. We had some unusually warm weather where it almost got to ten degrees above zero and stayed above zero during the day for about three days. Plenty of time for an amount of thaw to set in. Apparently almost forty people a year die in Québec by falling into the ice, on foot, in cars and of course the biggest culprit are the adventurous snowmobilers.
I steered down the bank and onto the ice. Nothing, no scary cracking sound though I turned my radio off and wound the window down so I could hear. I sped too, about forty KMH until I saw a sign saying ‘max ten KMH’. I thought it made sense to go faster but of course you could slid off the safe track and onto other parts of the ice. About halfway across I saw a sign saying ‘maximum five tonnes’. Surely that sign should have been on the entrance? I liked the view down the river, from the middle, looking up at the waterfront properties high on the banks. In a couple of minutes I was across and on a side road to Montréal. A snowmobile sped past in the opposite direction on one of the designated paths. If you live this rural you can get anywhere by snowmobile if the roads are clear or not. You see groups of them parked outside cafes like you would biker gangs in the summer. I glanced down the at the river I was now driving safely alongside and saw a couple of trucks driving across to a fishing hut community. The afternoon sun was behind me, skies were clear. Another snowmobile sped past with a crate of beer strapped to the passenger seat. This time of year I feel I have moved to a different world.