Twenty-five Spools

When Kevin Wiseman grooms trails for a west Quebec snowmobile club, his wife Audrey usually tags along. She was in the passenger seat last month as he steered the snowcat onto what he thought was a snow-covered field. When he realized they were actually on McMullen Lake, he tried to head back to the shore. The heavy vehicle broke through a thin spot in the ice and sank to the bottom of the lake. 43-year-old Kevin broke through the windshield and surfaced, but Audrey didn’t follow him. He dove back down but couldn’t find her in the water-filled cabin. “Something in my head said, ‘You’re going back under. You're staying there if you don't have your wife.” Finally he found her, pulled her out and carried her to a nearby cabin where a nurse called for an ambulance. Audrey calls her husband of fifteen years a hero. “If not for him, I would not be here.”