Hague Elementary School becomes shelter from the storm

Monday’s blizzard left many people stranded when highways closed and areas dealt with near-zero visibility.

Brad Nichol is the learning superintendent with the Prairie Spirit School Division. Like many others, he was driving home when road conditions deteriorated.

“I’ve never actually seen the highway quite that bad,” Nichol said. “It’s one of those things where once you’re in it, you’re like, ‘There’s no safe place to stop unless you get to a landmark.’ ”

That landmark was a gas station and restaurant on the border of Hague.

“We looked around the restaurant and there were some young families that looked a bit frazzled and could use a place to be,” Nichol explained. “Things didn’t look like they were letting up, so we made an announcement that we would be opening up the elementary school.”

(Prairie Spirit School Division/Submitted)

Nichol and others formed a convoy to get the first group safely to the school in the town, which is about 45 kilometres north of Saskatoon on Highway 11.

Eventually, the RCMP began directing people to the school or dropping them off there.

A teacher from the school reached out on Facebook and asked people for help, Nichol said.

“The community of Hague just started pouring in with blankets and food for all the stranded people,” he explained.

Around 70 people ended up spending the night inside the school.

“It was just such a cross-section of the world that goes up and down that highway every day that ended up spending the night in this little school,” he said.

Even as conditions on the roads started to improve overnight, Nichol said no one was in a rush to leave.

“I think the people showing up were really just quite spent and a little bit traumatized by the experience,” he said.

As morning arrived, so did people from the community with fresh coffee as stranded travellers got ready for the next leg of their journey.

Nichol is sure this is a story people will be telling for years to come.

“I think at the end of the day, with a lot of the things going on and in the news, this is kind of what we need to be reminded of,” he said.