People are saying their goodbyes to what’s become something of a Saskatchewan landmark, after an excavator left stranded in Quill Lakes for more than a decade was finally pulled out of the water this summer.
The excavator was left in the lake after it fell through ice in the lake, about 160 kilometres east of Saskatoon, 11 years ago, and has captured attention and viewers since.
“A lot of landmarks are disappearing, and we live in a flat country with not a lot of things to see,” said Janice Reynolds, who lives in Nokomis, southwest of Quill Lakes.
The story of the excavator began in March 2014, before the spring thaw, when the driver of the equipment tried to cross the frozen lake during a highway project and fell through, according to Saskatchewan’s Environment Ministry.
As years became a decade, the excavator stayed put and became somewhat of a monument. It’s even listed on Google as a former historical landmark, receiving cheeky five-star reviews.
The excavator fell into the lake at a time when many farmers were facing challenges due to particularly wet conditions, Nokomis resident Reynolds said, with many machines getting stuck “down to [their] axles in the mud.”
“I think when the excavator went in, that was one of the worst ones,” she said. “So we all felt a little bit better about the challenges that we were facing on our farms, seeing that disaster.”
Reynolds said she feels some sadness that the excavator is now gone and taking some of the “memory of that time” away with it.
Employees with Raptor Picker Services and Hotshots Inc. made their way out to Quill Lakes in late July to try their luck at finally getting the excavator out of the water.
“I was confident,” Lance Lund, the company’s owner, told CBC Radio’s The 306 Friday afternoon. Around eight people have tried to pull the excavator out in the past, but were unsuccessful, he said.
“We knew we had to get it up before we could get it out.”
Lund said he built his own system, “tried and true in the oil patch,” out of a gym pull machine and some mats.
LISTEN | Excavator-turned-landmark stuck in lake for more than a decade ago pulled out:
The group used a number of different machines over a five-day period to get the excavator out including two heavy pickers and two flatbed trucks.
“It takes a lot of pulling power,” said Lund. When the excavator was lifted up out of the water, the total weight was around 100,000 pounds (nearly 50 tonnes), he said, with the layers of mud accounting for much of the weight.
He acknowledged some people may be upset to see a landmark go, but the excavator still had a lot of oil inside of it and was harmful to the lake, he said.
“There are fish in that lake, as much as people don’t believe that there is,” he said.
The Quill Lakes are a series of saline lakes considered important for the staging and breeding of shorebirds.
However, “no environmental impacts were ever reported, and the Ministry of Environment was not involved in recovery operations, as no discharge had occurred,” the ministry said in a statement to The Canadian Press.
“At the end of the day, it was something that a lot of people have tried and failed,” said Lund.
“I’m just glad we were able to put a team together and all work as one and got her out.”
