The unforgettable blue Bombardier

Photo approved for editorial use by BPR’s Brian Manning

Today’s topic: “the elements.” But first, a disclaimer.

From day one of writing my “In the Spirit” column, I vowed never to write about the weather. But, I give myself a pass this once because this is not about the weather of today. It’s about the weather of yesteryear.

Back then, after those nasty swirling white-outs had settled down, there came a perk.

As a child, intermingled with my recollections of blinding blizzards, subzero temperatures and impassable roads, are fond memories of a hero-of-a-neighboring-farmer guy named Elmer Issendorf.

Elmer and his wife, Ellen, were good friends of my mom and dad.

Always smiling, always pleasant Elmer. Beneath his layers of cold weather gear, (the first most likely long johns), beat a servant’s heart.

The late Elmer had a big blue B12 Bombardier snow machine. It held 12 people. I got to ride in it.

My siblings, David, Lori, Myrlin, and I, liked school. We didn’t want snow days, so it was disappointing when the storm the night before blocked roads. The next morning all was still, the sun was shining brightly and we couldn’t get to school. This was before the big yellow bus service came to our district.

So, Elmer came in his Bombardier – over drifts on the road, perhaps across a field or even taking a ditch in our farming communities of Newburg and Russell, N.D. Elmer picked up lots of students and delivered them to school.

Over the years, the memory of this has flashed back more times than I can count. Can you imagine, as a youngster, the excitement of seeing a big Bombardier come gliding over the snow, turning down your drifted-in tree lined driveway and stopping in front of your farmhouse so you could wade through knee deep snow and jump in for an exciting ride to school?

The Bombardier had bench type seats on both sides and around the back. The ride may have been a bit bumpy and a little noisy, but always it was way too short. Those two and one-half miles just were not enough.

We needed more blizzards.

The other day I chatted on the phone with Elmer’s son, Clifford, who said his dad had the Bombardier for 15 to 20 years.

When he got a little older, Clifford enjoyed driving the Bombardier, too. “It was fun,” he said. “The main driver’s seat was right in the center. It was just like shifting a truck. It had an excellent heater and it had big spotlights on it.”

I learned it wasn’t only school kids who reaped the Bombardier’s benefits.

“Oh yes,” Clifford said, “the wind would be howling and the phone would ring and dad would say, ‘oh yeah, I’ll be there.’ He did a lot of taking people from Newburg to Bottineau because they were close to childbirth.”

Clifford recalls once hearing his dad tell an expectant mother, “If you think you’re close, we’re going,” because Elmer was the Bombardier driver. He wasn’t too keen on the prospect of helping a baby come into the world.

One mother went to the hospital in the Bombardier, then had twins.

And one time a pastor came to Newburg on the train during a ground blizzard. “He wanted to go to his relatives, Bob and Esther Tvedt,” Clifford said. So the pastor called Elmer and Elmer set out. The pastor asked Elmer, “How do you know where you are going?” Clifford recalls his dad’s answer: “There are road signs but we aren’t using them. We use the highline wires. When we see the highline wires head east, that’s where we turn east. When the lines go to the south, we turn south.”

There also were times when Elmer took farmers out to their fields with hay in the Bombardier to leave for stranded livestock.

Here’s a bit of Bombardier history: The B12 was manufactured by Bombardier (Now BRP), the same company that makes the Ski-Doo brand of snowmobiles today. It was invented by a Joseph-Armand Bombardier, born in Valcourt. Quebec. At an early age this Joseph discovered a love for mechanics. At 13, he built a miniature locomotive that was propelled by clock mechanisms he bought from a jeweler. Then he started making mechanical toy tractors and boats. After marriage, Joseph and his wife had six children. In 1934 their 2-year-old son died of peritonitis because the family could not get him to the hospital in time. That’s when Joseph realized the need for effective winter transportation in rural communities.

Better than I, my brothers recall the Blizzard of 1949 when the North Dakota Army National Guard came from Minot, N.D., with bulldozers to clear snow from our country roads and farmyards.

David, a boy of 9 at the time, liked to watch the big machines at work.

“I remember a guy being in our yard,” David said. “He was sitting in the cab in his shirt sleeves because he was getting the warm air that came off the engine.”

David also recalls that our neighbor, Clarence Anderson, was a passenger in a small plane that flew out from Minot. Clarence’s job was to show the pilate where our farm was.

“Dad couldn’t get a team and hayrack out to the field to the livestock,” David said, “so they pushed hay out of the airplane.”

Guess I don’t mind writing about yesteryear’s weather. Sometimes it was frightful, but Elmer and the Bombardier made it most delightful.

Until Soon