Bertie, we’ve got something to show you.”
With Ed and Tommy as my escorts, we walked out the south door. The St. Lawrence Market used to sit right on the waterfront. Now much of the shoreline had been extended south with landfill, but a water canal had been left so that small boats from Lake Ontario could still sail up almost to the foot of the market to deliver their goods. At this time of year all the water between the Toronto shoreline and the islands was frozen solid. The silhouettes of several cabbage heads bobbed in the shadows as we walked south, crossed some railway tracks, slid down a steep bank, and strode out onto the frozen canal.
Parked in the ice channel was a large wooden contraption that looked as if a sailboat had collided with a horse sleigh. It was an iceboat. All my life I had seen them dashing across Toronto’s harbour at incredible speeds. My father had told me that with the right wind they were the fastest vehicles on earth. They certainly seemed to crash more than any other vehicles on earth. In the wintertime the newspapers were full of stories about races and crashes. Many people were injured every year. Sometimes someone even died.
“This is the Marinion,” Tommy said. “Want to take a ride?”
I was scared spitless, but with a shoreline full of Kellys still waiting for me, I said, “Love to.”
“Climb aboard,” Tommy urged.
“Where?” I asked.
“Up here,” Ed said, indicating a tiny triangular-shaped platform at the rear end of the boat.
“Can all three of us fit up there?”
“Are you kidding?” Ed said. “On a race day there’s five or more onboard.”
“You guys race?” I asked as I climbed into the box.
“Yep,” Tommy said. “Hang on!”
I felt the back end of the boat lift as Tommy and Ed picked up the vessel and flipped the rear runner so that a metal skate faced down onto the ice. Then they climbed aboard and began yanking ropes and spinning pulleys. A sail rose suddenly like a shark fin, and when the wind caught it, the boat started to move. We sailed out of the water channel and into the main harbour.
The Marinion increased speed rapidly until we were going as fast as a galloping horse. In the moonlight I thought I could see some shadowy Kellys riding double and triple on bicycles racing along the eastern shore in a vain attempt to keep up with us, but they were soon left behind.
Wind whistled in the rigging overhead, and the blades on the ice made a dull, roaring sound as the boat glided along. We were sailing southeast toward the Toronto Islands. The islands were actually a collection of sandbars that protected Toronto’s harbour from the big waves of Lake Ontario. Some people, like Tommy, lived on the islands year-long, but mostly they were deserted in the winter. It was because of the islands that Toronto’s harbour froze over, forming a perfect iceboat racetrack.
Sometimes the ride on the boat was so smooth I thought we had come to a halt except that objects on the ice suddenly whizzed past as if they had been fired out of a cannon. Other times we’d hit some rough ice and I’d feel my teeth rattle as the boat shuddered violently and I had to cling tightly to the platform to keep myself from being thrown off.
Bang!
Without warning the boat leaped off the ice and landed hard a dozen yards later.
“What the heck was that?” I asked.
Tommy shrugged. “Pressure crack. The wind and the currents cause the ice to shift. They cause a ridge to form and they’re hard to see at night. No worry unless the winds open the ice and we fall through a hole.”
“Can you swim?” Ed asked me.
“Yes.”
“Too bad,” Ed said. “That water’s so cold that if we fell in we’d be dead in less than a minute, anyway.” Both he and Tommy laughed.
Yes, I thought, crazy was definitely a good thing to be on this contraption.
The easternmost island, Ward’s, suddenly loomed very close. That meant we had crossed half a mile of ice in a matter of seconds. Tommy turned the tiller bar hard, and the boat swung with a spray of ice and creaking wood. The thick wooden beam that ran along the bottom of the sail swung straight at us like a huge baseball bat. It stopped just inches from my face. Tommy and Ed ducked without even appearing to think about it and began pulling ropes and readjusting the sail. In a few more seconds we were heading back toward the city.
“Switch sides, Bertie,” Ed said. “You’re slowing us down.”
Carefully, I ducked under the beam and sat on the opposite side of the boat.
“Where do you live?” Tommy asked.
“Over by the old fort. But the wind’s going the wrong way. We’ll never get there.”
“Not a problem,” Tommy said as he turned the craft west. Now the wind was almost against us.
The boat appeared to be moving even faster. We hit a few more pressure ridges, only this time we seemed to barely feel them. We just sailed over the gaps. The wind was hitting our sail from the left, making the left forward runner occasionally lift off the ice.
“Hang on and c’mon up,” Ed said as he stood and started moving forward on the boat.
“What?” I asked.
“C’mon. Let’s see what the old girl will do tonight.”
Following Ed’s lead, I stood. Just two feet below, the ice continued to roll past faster than a horse could run. Ed was already halfway up the boat. Looking from above, an iceboat was constructed like a cross. At the bottom of the cross was the small platform where Tommy, Ed, and I had been sitting. Where the platform ended, all there was to stand on was a wooden beam about ten inches wide. It led to the front where an even thinner crossbeam went out about ten feet on either side. That was where the mast also rose. The sail billowed out to the right. Clinging to a skinny rope, I inched forward one baby step at a time until I reached the crossbeam. Ed was already out on the left crossbeam, holding on to another skinny rope that ran from the boat’s left blade to the top of the mast. I felt as if I were the bravest guy in the world just getting as far forward as the mast.
Bang! We hit another pressure crack. My head bumped hard against the mast. I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see an empty space where Ed had been standing, but he was still there, leaning back with his legs flexed.
“C’mon, Bertie!” Ed called “Best ride in the country!”
I glanced down.
“Don’t look down,” Ed immediately said.
“Just grab the rope and step out!” Tommy called from behind.
My legs felt like jelly. As skinny as that main beam was, it seemed like a boardwalk compared to the crossbeam. But if Ed could do it, so could I. With my left hand I reached up and grabbed the rope that ran from the mast to the runner. With my left foot I groped about until I felt the side beam underneath me. Gingerly, I shifted my weight from my right leg to my left, then extended my right hand and grabbed the rope.
“That’s
