Angry seals on my job

It was still dark.

The wind was shaking the house. I could clearly hear that some of the flimsy aluminum siding on this only a few months old house was flapping badly.

The snowfall was horizontal and only in drifts where there was a wind break.

Time for me to go to work at the power plant. Normally I would see it on the other side of the bay, but not today. All was white.

My photo

The car was not to be seen either in the lee of the house. I used the metal shovel carefully not to chip the paint or dent my car. It was, after all, under there somewhere.

My house and car

Finally, after a few back and forth wiggles through the snow drifts, I got to work.

The plant was running, making electricity for all the Nova Scotianers who still had a power supply, many lines had fallen.

The wind forces were terrific, the recording wind velocity meter on the roof, some 120 metres above ground, had blown away and the last reading was 185 km/h.

The large service door on the wind side had blown in. It was flailing in the wind and nobody could get near. There were snow drifts inside, all the way to the running air compressors and circulating pumps.

I felt like the engineer on a sinking ship, keep the pumps running.

Fortunately, all the operating equipment was hot enough that the wet and melting snow didn’t affect it. The snow accumulated around the cold and idle machinery, though.

The wind abated slightly at mid day, so we could secure the large door and almost make it wind tight again.

Then another problem, the air intakes on the roof had started to ice over and the vacuum built up inside the building. I climbed up and took a look at the air intakes high up. There was no way for any human to walk on the icy roof in that wind to even get close to the frozen intake grilles.

The vacuum kept increasing. No, we cannot allow the large door to be sucked in, open some other door for air.

This time we lifted the service door, facing the sea, about a metre to allow combustion air for the boiler to enter. 

The stormy air became colder and the wet snow turned to ice on the ground. The wind picked up again, but the pumps were running and we were making power, as we should.

Then, a call from one of the operators.

“There are seals in the plant.”

Stock photo

Yes, there were. Three seals had wiggled in on the bottom floor. They were totally confused about what to do in the very noisy place they were now.

We wisely styed away – and called the RCMP.

“We have seals inside.”

“We’ve never seen a seal that we couldn’t handle, we’ll be there shortly.”

Two officers arrived in a four-wheel drive light truck and walked inside the plant in a very authoritative manner.

RCM photo

The floor may have been flat but there were piping, wiring and equipment all round. We seriously feared that the seals would hurt themselves.

The seals were not to be spoken to. The leader, an older male with an imposing mustache, growled very threateningly.

“Let’s back the truck inside and see if we can get the male onto the truck-bed.”

The brave officer drove the truck around the plant and some distance away to execute the turn-around.

It wasn’t easy to see in the snow and he drove too far. The truck just about drove into the sea. Reversing and spinning all four wheels did no good, the truck was stuck.

We fetched our plant based four-wheel drive and backed it in.

The old seal was not interested in jumping up, or to wiggle up on a long plank.

“This doesn’t work.”

Next, the RCMP officer wrapped a rope around one of the wildly and dangerously swapping rear flippers of the male.

Only later did we learn that this officer was an accomplished sailor and had tied the rope with a quick-release knot.

He towed that male slowly backwards, toward the sea and the sea-foam coating us in the storm. The “ladies” followed their master in a much quieter manner.

We all stood well back, this was not a safe operation.

When closer to the shore, the seal realized where the seashore was and, rope and all, took off on his own.

Stock photo

This is where the quick release knot came in. The officer on the rear of the truck pulled that magic rope trick and – the seal was released.

He and his ladies were gone in seconds.

We used that same rope to tow the precariously resting RCMP truck out of its dilemma.

We often saw the three seals on the shore during the rest of the winter. By summer they didn’t come to us any more.

I kept the newspaper story, as reported by RCMP, in my belongings for a long time, but those papers are lost now. 

Pity.
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If you want to read more about my rather adventurous life, please buy my memoirs here:

https://www.amazon.ca/Seasons-Man-Lindvall-family-friends-ebook/dp/B07HHGRGPP