We are hunkered down here in Maine. You may have heard about Juno, this little blizzard we’re having. Though our downtown office is closed to keep our staff off the roads, we are plugging away from our home offices. Like the fishermen we so admire, our work rarely stops because the weather gets a little hinky. The significant difference being that we’re not out in it.

It was just about two years ago that the last big winter storm, Nemo, hit the Northeast and the Maritimes. I remember because I was in the Nova Scotia fishing town of Yarmouth. Reports from home were of more than 2 feet of snow, and my coworker and I thought we’d never make it to Halifax in time to catch our flight back to Maine the next day.

In a moment of great daring and stupidity, we decided to brave the drive to Halifax a night early, almost 200 miles on a two-lane undivided and unlit road (now called the Fishermen’s Memorial Highway), as the storm was churning away from the coast, and hole up there the night before our flight. The drive was long and hairy. Every time we stopped for coffee or gas, the locals looked at us like we had three heads when we reported that we were going to keep driving. When Canadians think the storm is too rough to go on, it’s probably wise to listen to them.

But we made it to Halifax many hours later, had a lovely warm supper by a fireplace, and got on our flight the next day. Smooth sailing all the way home, where they had gotten 32 inches of powder.

Being out in bad weather reminds me how easy I have it most days, even driving through a blizzard, at least I was on solid ground that may have been passed over by a plow truck recently enough for the tires to grab the road.

Just two days after we left Yarmouth, the five-man crew of the Nova Scotia lobster boat Miss Ally was lost to rough seas, most likely capsized by a rogue wave.

Fishing is a risky business as it is. I hope all of our fleets are safe in port or far enough off the coast to endure this storm in relative calm.