Canadian Man Helps Drive American Family Over 1,000 Miles to Alaska After Getting Stranded in Snowstorm.
A heartwarming story from the freezing cold of Canada.
The following written content by Stacey Leasca
The pandemic has changed a lot about life on earth, but not Canadians’ extremely good manners.
In early fall, Lynn Marchessault, an American living in Georgia, made plans to drive her children and the family pets all the way from their southern state to Alaska to be with her husband, a staff sergeant stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks. However, it seemed as though COVID-19, mother nature, and Canada’s government had other plans.
As Marchessault explained to CNN, she conducted all the right steps to ensure she obtained the proper paperwork to cross through Canada to get to our most northern state. But, the process took much longer than anticipated, and rather than depart in the fall, Marchessault and her children had to push their plans to November, right as the weather in Canada began to turn.
Undeterred, the group stayed optimistic . For the first 3,000 miles, she says, the weather held, and the group made excellent time. However, along the way, Canadian authorities reminded her she had just days to cross the country or she’d be in violation of their COVID-19 rules and would be forced to turn back.
And that’s when all winter hell broke loose.
At some point further north, the family encountered a whiteout storm. At the same time, her tires appeared to lose traction, and she used up the last of her window washer fluid. So, she pulled off the road and into a gas station where she began to weep while standing outside her car.”My kids had to go to the restroom, they put their masks on, so I was out at the vehicle,” she shared with CNN. “I’m a complete wreck — I was crying at this point — and a woman came out of the gas station. She says, ‘Are you okay?'”Marchessault let it all out to the stranger, who then informed her she had summer, not winter tires. So, the kind stranger took her to a tire store to get her car outfitted with the correct gear. Then, she did something even more kind. The stranger took to Facebook to find a local willing to drive the family the rest of the way to their destination, some 1,000 miles up the road.
To the family’s surprise, someone answered the call.
That someone was Gary Bath, a Canadian ranger who previously trained Canadian military members to survive the Arctic.”I didn’t care how far it was, I just knew they needed help and they had a few short days to hit the border before they were going to get in trouble, so,” Bath told CBC. Read more from Travel and Leisure.
Here’s a look at Alaska in the winter:
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