Doug Miller and his children during the Clean-Up Calgary Flood 2013
Calgary has recently experienced the worst flooding in roughly 100 years. The basement and main floor of my house were hit hard. It’s tough to gauge the magnitude of loss when a flood strikes. You can cope with losing a furnace or a dishwasher or a couch but the loss of personal items like kid’s paintings, photos or family heirlooms are harder to deal with. Luckily for me most personal items were saved. My TRAK kayak was among my losses but I hoped to salvage it. The kayak was stored in my garage. The flood brought seven feet of water into the garage but what was worse was the mud and silt that came along. Needless to say the entire pack was covered in a gross mixture of water, mud and silt. I lay out the various parts to dry but I was unable to clean the interior of the kayak’s skin. I was also concerned about the integrity of the jacks as they had been crusted with mud and I wasn’t sure if they were still functional. The pack was very dirty and I had dislodged a ball joint from the aluminum stern frame in my haste to unpack the kayak. I called Nolin with TRAK and asked him if he could fix the ball joint and check the jacks to ensure they were functioning properly. He told me to bring in the kayak and they would fix it up. That was an understatement. In about a week I got a call from Nolin saying the kayak was ready. The kayak had been thoroughly cleaned by Gion, a long-term colleague of Nolin’s. Two jacks and a couple of ribs and the entire stern frame were replaced and to top things off, the restored kayak was delivered to me in a new pack. And best of all free of charge. What can I say? Thanks again Nolin and Gion. I’m impressed and I hope others are too. Doug Miller
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