People say goodbye to what has become a milestone of Saskatchewan, after an excavator went stranded in Quill Lakes for more than a decade, he finally took out of the water this summer.
The excavator was left in the lake after it fell through the ice on the lake, about 160 kilometers east of Saskatoon, 11 years ago, and has caught the attention and spectators since then.
“Many reference points are disappearing, and we live in a flat country without many things to see,” said Janice Reynolds, who lives in Nokomis, southwest Quill Lakes.
The history of the excavator began in March 2014, before the thaw of spring, when the team driver tried to cross the frozen lake during a road project and failed, according to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.
As the years became a decade, the excavator stayed and became a monument. It even appears on Google as an ancient historical milestone, which receives brave five -star reviews.
The excavator fell into the lake at a time when many farmers faced challenges due to particularly humid conditions, said Reynolds, a resident of Nokomis, and many machines stuck. ” [their] Axes in the mud “.
“I think when the excavator entered, that was one of the worst,” he said. “So we all feel a little better about the challenges we faced on our farms, seeing that disaster.”
Reynolds said he feels some sadness because the excavator has gone and that something of the “memory of that time is taken.”
‘Take a lot of traction power’
Employees with Raptor Picker Services and Hotshots Inc. went to Quill Lakes at the end of July to try the luck at the excavator of the water.
“I had confidence,” said Lance Lund, owner of the company, to CBC Radio 306 Friday afternoon. Around eight people have tried to get the excavator in the past, but they were not successful, he said.
“We knew we had to lift it before we were able to get it out.”
Lund said he built his own system, “tested and true in the oil patch”, of a pole gin machine and some mats.
Listening | The excavator converted into land trapped in Lake for more than a decade retired:
306Excavator converted into land trapped in Quill Lake more than a decade ago withdrew
Lance Lund, owner of Raptor Picker Services and Hotshots, joins 306 to talk about getting an 11 -year -old excavator converted into the land of Quill Lake.
The group used several different machines for a period of five days to get the excavator, including two heavy collectors and two platform trucks.
“You need a lot of traction power,” Lund said. When the excavator rose from the water, the total weight was around 100,000 pounds (almost 50 tons), he said, and the mud layers represented much of the weight.
He acknowledged that some people may be annoying to see a reference point, but the excavator still had a lot of oil inside him and was harmful to the lake, he said.
“There are fish in that lake, as much as people do not believe there is,” he said.
Feathers lakes are a series of saline lakes considered important for staging and breeding birds.
However, “environmental impacts were never reported, and the Ministry of Environment did not participate in recovery operations, since there had been no discharge,” the ministry said in a statement to the Canadian press.
“At the end of the day, it was something that many people have tried and failed,” Lund said.
“I’m glad we could join a team and everything worked as one and took it out.”
