Much to my surprise, when I started looking through the 100 pounds of tools I had brought along on our great northern adventure, I quickly realized I had no pliers at all. None, nada, not a one-pair. I must have neglected to put them back in my tool pack after a final pre-trip check-over before we left on our journey (My pre-trip check over apparently did not include a pre-trip tool check over). I did have pretty much everything else I could have needed in my tool pack. I very probably could have Magyver'd up a rocket ship with all the tools and accoutrements that I carried (so long as pliers weren't required).
Anyhoo, I strolled anxiously into this little coffee shop and inquired as to where the closest service station was. A local overheard me, popped his head out of his booth and offered to help a guy out. He agreed to drive the1/2 hour required back to his house and bring me some pliers so I could get myself sorted out and we could get on with getting on.
Upon his return, He presented 3 pairs of pliers and handed them over. I was able to remove the one other good clamp (with the pliers you see), re-pack the boot, then use the gear clamps from my shock reservoirs, zip-ties, bailing wire, and electrical tape to temporarily secure the cv boot back in place. Meanwhile, our good Samaritan had to get moving along, so he simply said "keep the pliers I have lots at home". (Funny I thought, as so did I).
We limped successfully into Whitehorse, located and went to the Toyota dealer and had them check everything over for the possibility of a dreaded mechanical failure. After four nail-biting hours, they checked it all over and under, re-packed the grease, re-installed the cv boot with the proper clamps, and agreed all was OK in the land of cv axles. We then went on our merry way, stopping immediately in at Canadian Tire where I purchased 4 shiny new pairs of differing pliers for my (now hopefully complete) tool kit. As our good Samaritan had mentioned he was heading Dawson City, I figured I'd be easily be able to find him and return the 3 pairs pliers to their rightful owner at that time.
So now we were traveling North on our adventure with 7 pairs of pliers. I am quite sure that at this point any pliers requiring issue we could happen upon would have been easily and successfully dispatched with.
Later that afternoon we found and pulled into a most excellent wooded campsite for the evening, where we got ourselves settled in. As always, one of the first priorities is to take the dogs for their required and mandatory walk in the forest so they can stretch their legs and check their pee-mail.
As we were strolling up a random nondescript overgrown deer/human pathway on this rocky ledge I noticed something laying in the shrubbery beside the trail. I bent over, took a much closer look and to my surprise Murphy had left a special gift for me........Yes, a pair of perfectly good operational (albeit a little rusty) pliers were laying there half hidden, smirking up at me.
The moral of my tale is this; go check your tool kit and make sure you have the adequate number of pliers for whatever adventure you next depart on. And oh yes, we never did locate our Pliers Saviour, and Good Samaritan in Dawson City so we traveled the remaining 6000km of our journey with 8 pairs of pliers along for the ride.
