Springfield Collegiate Institute school band students at Craik School in Saskatchewan. The Winnipeg school’s marching band was stranded in Saskatchewan after their bus started to fishtail back and forth across a slippery prairie highway.Supplied
When a snowstorm stranded a busload of teenage band students in the middle of rural Saskatchewan, their teacher feared disaster. But what ensued was an impromptu lesson in small-town hospitality – and, equally delightful for the snowbound castaways, an opportunity to put their instruments to use.
There were 47 teens and five adults aboard the motorcoach the week of April 16 when it started to fishtail back and forth across a slippery prairie highway after a spring blizzard.
According to Greg Crowe, the group’s teacher and musical director, the bus slid left and right for about 30 seconds. The students, members of the band at Springfield Collegiate Institute in Oakbank, Man., began to scream and cry. They had attended a music festival in Edmonton and were heading home.
“I was very nervous for them and concerned for their safety,” Mr. Crowe said.
The bus entered the nearest town: Craik, Sask., population 453.
Mr. Crowe soon realized the lone motel in the area was closed for the season. While he tried to figure out alternatives, a red pickup truck pulled up alongside the bus. Mark Wegner, Craik’s mayor, was inside. He had just finished his morning coffee and happened to be driving by.
Mr. Wegner shared some local knowledge: The only business open in the town at the time was the post office. He directed the group to the local school.
When the bus arrived at Craik School, its principal, Charla Edwards, ran to meet the Springfield crew. With the roads still covered in ice, it seemed likely the group would need to spend the night. Ms. Edwards turned to Facebook, where she asked locals for blankets, pillows, towels, air mattresses and other supplies.
“There was no waiting time,” Ms. Edwards said. Craik residents brought everything she requested. “I actually had to hold people off because I didn’t know what we were at,” she added.
The teens from Springfield met their peers from Craik. Before long, games of football and dodgeball were under way in the school’s gym.
“All of a sudden, it just felt like we were part of their school,” Mr. Crowe said.
He and the other adults in the group proposed an idea: Would the kids like to put on a concert for students and staff at Craik as a token of thanks? They didn’t have most of the percussion they would need, and there were no stands available for sheet music, but the band agreed and began looking for makeshift solutions.
“Playing crash cymbal parts on a tambourine is not a bad substitute; an upright tuba case actually makes a pretty good bass drum; singing the xylophone parts makes for an interesting colour in the ensemble; and putting a splash cymbal on a timbale creates a pretty decent makeshift snare drum!” Mr. Crowe wrote in a Facebook post afterward.
In the evening, the girls slept in the gym, and the boys in the school’s library. By 11 p.m., all was silent in the building, Ms. Edwards said.
The next day, she reached out to Mr. Crowe and the other Springfield adults. Would some Springfield students, she asked, be willing to tutor some of the younger kids at Craik? Mr. Crowe brought the request to one of his students and asked her to find a few more who would be interested.
“She brought back a whole army of kids who wanted to do all the things, like tutoring in math and English and reading to children,” he said. Some students volunteered to demonstrate their instruments, and suggested doing a smaller performance for one of the classrooms.
“My heart was swelling to see the initiative and the passion,” Mr. Crowe said.
When the Springfield group heard later that morning that the roads were clear, Mr. Crowe noticed Craik’s school sign: “BLOOM where you are planted,” it says.
“We were all planted there for about 24 hours or so,” Mr. Crowe said. “It really could have gone any other way, but it didn’t. It was a beautiful thing.”
Mr. Wegner, whose town’s slogan is ”The Friendliest Place by a Dam Site” – it is near a reservoir – said the band would have met with the same response in any small town.
“That’s the Saskatchewan way,” he said.
Mr. Crowe is already thinking about returning to Craik at some point in the future.
“We would want to go back and do it up properly,” he said. “And be more prepared this time, and give them a proper thank you, with a proper concert.”