Through the nineties I travelled a great deal throughout northern Canada and Alaska. My trips frequently found me in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories. This community is located in a picturesque area of the country near Wood Buffalo National Park.
One overnight stay is particularly memorable. On this trip I stayed in a hotel new to me but most assuredly old to the community. It was located in the business area of Fort Smith, a common country hotel formula of concrete stairway through a wooden door to a small lobby with the beer vendor to one side of the glassed in desk and the beverage entrance to the other. Narrow stairs lead to dingy even narrower hallways. The smells of decades of travelers mix and waft through the air. My room was small with an especially quaint view of and punctuated by the incessant drone of the local telephone company’s microwave dish complex.
The overly soft and sagging single bed was located near the windows. The hum of the transmission dishes, the summer night light, the chill in the air, and the mattress sag conspired to leave me very tired in the morning. When I finally deigned to rise it was with the personal conviction I was going to have to shower long to drive the exhaustion from my body.
The small bathroom was dominated by an ancient cast iron, porcelain lined, claw foot, high sided bathtub that stood majestically upon a pedestal, a feature common in the north to allow plumbing a warm chase as an opportunity to survive the creeping chill freeze of winter air. The effect was the sides of the tub were near waist high. A small step stool was provided for one to climb into the tub.
Above the tub a chrome structure of tubes suspended from the ceiling in symmetry above the sides of the tub. Hanging from this structure a very heavy dark green rubber shower curtain with big brass grommets. The obviously very old shower curtain looked like war era surplus army material and was completely impervious to light. It was attached to the chrome tubing by surprisingly flimsy curtain hooks, the clip ends strained apart under the apparent weight of the curtain.
The plumbing was an unusual mix of brass fittings and copper pipes. Two large pipes come out of the floor to the hot and cold spigots. Spigots are industrial style, rubber covered handles, designed to be all on or all off. Attached to this coupling of pipes is a single even larger pipe leading to the showerhead. The industrial handle for the shower is located just below the bend in the pipe to the showerhead. With the tub on claw feet upon a pedestal the shower spigot was located just beyond my reach while standing on the bathroom floor.
My usual process is to turn on and set the water temperature to a comfort level, and then turn on the shower to clear the pipes of cold water before stepping into the tub. With the shower spigot located above my reach I found it necessary to wait until I was in the tub before turning on the shower. I was going to have to steel myself for the initial stock of cold before the glorious spray of warm water.
The showerhead itself was the size of a pie plate and had the look of a rain style water saving device. Past experience with these types of showerheads was enjoyable and in spite of the dubious look of the tub and array of devices to support the shower itself this showerhead gave me pause to believe I was going to enjoy the pleasure of a gentle rain like event.
I stepped into the tub. The large pipes were rapidly filling the tub and water was already ankle deep by the time I had climbed up the step stool and stepped through the heavy rubber curtain. Gaining my balance I reached up to the shower spigot and in one deft motion opened the shower.
The pressure coming from this showerhead was a shock. My gentle rain was in fact a torrent akin to an open fire hose. The epidermis stripping power of the water was a shock. Every pore on my face and body was bombarded clean by the pressure. Water was pushing me back across the slippery floor of the tub. The high pressure of the water beating down upon me encapsulated as it was by the heavy shower curtain had the causal effect of a vortex of air that began to swirl about me.
This air vortex tugged at the shower curtain suddenly causing it to pull in and latch itself to my wet skin. In my panic to release myself from this unexpected grip I twirled around to turn off the spigot further causing the curtain to wrap like a tourniquet around my body. I slipped on the wet tub floor tumbling over the edge of the tub, my fall slowed, suspended by the curtain hooks as they individually popped from the curtain tubes, finally leaving me stranded on the floor cocooned in a straight jacket of dark green rubber curtain, trussed from ankle to above my head.
Removed from the containment of the shower curtain the high-pressure head spread much of its water outside the tub. I spent an anxious few minutes extricating myself from my rubber shroud leaving me panting and confused in a rising level of water in my bathroom. After turning off the water and opening the bathroom door to a drain of water across the carpeted floor I dressed and scurried down to the glass secured lobby desk.
My brief explanation of shower adventures was met with a blank look and simple response, “oh that’s okay, it happens all the time”.
