If nothing else makes the town of Fort Nelson noteworthy, then the annual Emergency Services Christmas Dinner does. It has to be seen to be believed. The basic premise is that the businesses in town donate enough food to feed all of the four or five thousand people who show up at the rec centre between two (when Santa’s helicopter lands in the parking lot) and seven in the afternoon. Food is even brought to the mill crews at the edge of town. To put this in perspective, Fort Nelson’s population has yet to pass five thousand in a census. No kitchen in town is big enough to cook that much food, so it’s prepared at a restaurant and two grocery stores and carted to the rec centre by a fleet of private trucks, ambulances and police vehicles.
The line is unbroken for five hours, and has something like the feel of the whole town doing a curtain call: Oh look, there’s the lady who runs the laundromat. There’s the director of education for the school board. That guy was in our ambulance last week. So was that one. Dr. Suiker’s sitting with Dr. Mostert. Oh, that’s nice; I didn’t know that cop’s wife was pregnant. Here’s the pilot we usually fly with, and there’s the owner of the flight company. Wait, who’s she?? Taken. Damn cops. And so on.
Near the end of the dinner, my partner and I slipped out the back, put on our uniforms, and started our shift with, among other things, a hearty Romeo y Julietta in the beginnings of the first snow in a couple of weeks. Not a car in the streets, just the snow and a couple of good cigars. Under the circumstances (duty time means Mass is postponed til morning), I think this was about the best Christmas Eve imaginable. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.