We made it to the Quadriga hearing alive. That was all I could think of when my friend and I stumbled into the Nova Scotia Supreme Courthouse on March 5, somewhat hungover, but all in one piece.

The insolvency of Quadriga, the biggest crypto exchange in Canada, is a true tale of intrigue. As a journalist, I could not get enough. My distraction was such that good sense and attention to life’s smaller details often went out the window.

A few weeks ago, Kyle Gibson, my equally Quadriga-obsessed comrade, and I thought it a great idea to drive to from our hometown of Boston to Halifax to witness the hearing firsthand. Flights to Halifax are expensive and involve lots of stops. Why not drive?

We talked about it all week—what food to bring in the car, who would be at the trial, and how many days we would stay in Canada.

I had been away all week in Los Angeles. On Sunday, March 3, I flew into Boston on a redeye—because who needs sleep? We set off that afternoon in my 2001 Honda with just enough time to make a quick stop at the liquor store. 

Saddled up with beer, wine and a few bags of trail mix, we headed north. That night, we found ourselves winding through the dark backroads of Maine. Other than intermittent signs warning of us of moose, we were surrounded by scant evidence of civilization.

After crossing the border into Canada, we drove on to Saint John, New Brunswick, and stopped at a hotel. We’d made good progress—400 miles down and only 300 miles to go—and we were immensely proud of ourselves. We drank a few beers, got stoned, and promptly fell asleep.

In the morning we awoke to the sound of snow plows. “Kyle, did you check the weather forecast,” I asked, peering sleepily out the window at my snow-covered car in the parking lot below. Snow was blowing and visibility was such that you could barely see across the street.

“I’ll go clean off the car,” Kyle said, putting on his boots and jacket. We were used to rough Boston winters, but had we read the local weather reports, we would have learned that this was a serious winter storm even by Canadian standards.

A documentary filmmaker whom I was supposed to meet in Halifax sent an email. “Are you going to make it?” she wrote. “I saw all the flights in Boston were cancelled.” I wrote her back, “We are diving, so we’re fine. See you at the hearing!”

By mid-afternoon, the storm had eased, and we were on our way again. The roads were not well plowed. And the landscape looked eerily dystopian with snow covered conifers and windmills scattered in white fields of nothingness. As we drove, we noted a few 18-wheelers that had gone off the road. They looked like crippled mastodons. We thought little of it, other then, wonder what happened to them? And kept driving.

A few hours later, I was dozing in the passenger seat when I heard Kyle go, “Uh, oh, uh oh.” The car was slipping from one side of the road to the other. Like hapless observers, we watched as everything happened in slow motion. Eventually, the car went completely off the road and into the median, where it came to a muffled stop in several feet of snow.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Kyle said, shaking his head and hitting his hands against the steering wheel. “We’re fine,” I said, trying to ease his guilt. “Everything is fine.”

We were fortunate in that the roads were mostly empty, which meant there were no cars to hit us while we were swerving. But this was also a problem. Who was going to find us? I thought of the Stephen King novel “Misery,” where the writer goes off the road in a storm and gets rescued by an insane person. 

Moments later, a Canadian policeman pulled up out of nowhere, and bounded out of his car. He had a bald head and big white teeth, and a gun slung low around his waist. He cheerfully told us he had been out arresting people all day when he spotted our car poking out of the snow. He wanted to check if we were okay. “Arresting people?” I said. What people was he talking about? There was virtually nothing around us.

With a big smile, he explained that only bad people come out in weather like this. He promptly called a tow truck, and within 30 minutes, we were back on the road again.

Kyle and I laughed at our little mishap, and Kyle insisted on getting behind the wheel again. “Good for you,” I said. “Back in the saddle!” Our progress continued, a little slower this time, but we were totally fine.

Also, we were armed with a new plan. If the car started skidding again, instead of breaking, we would accelerate and steer out of the situation. “That’s what you are supposed to do,” I explained. “Okay,” said Kyle. “That’s what we’ll do then.”

By the time we entered Nova Scotia, temps were warmer and the roads were free of snow. I was behind the wheel going 60 mph. But it was dark, and we had no idea we were driving on black ice.

Just like that, the car spun out of control again, but this time, the road was filled with 18 wheelers. We slid wildly back and forth across the freeway, before a 180-degree spin threw our backend into a snowbank and left us pointing into oncoming traffic. My attempts to accelerate and steer out of the situation had proven absolutely worthless. 

“Jesus Christ,” I said, realizing for the first time our lives were in danger. “It’s okay!,” said Kyle, who leapt out of the car and began tossing snow out from around the tires. I jumped out, too, imagining it only a matter of time before another car hit the same patch of black ice and slammed into us. We were going to die.

A woman in a Honda CRV pulled up ahead of us and got out of her car. She was wearing yoga pants. “Are you okay?” she asked with the same cheerfulness as the police officer we had run into earlier. “We’re fine,” I said, explaining to her that we were from Boston. 

“Are those winter tires or all-season?,” she asked looking at my car. All season, I told her, which is fine because all season means all seasons—and winter is a season.

She offered to call a tow, but we declined. “He’s going to dig us out,” I said pointing to Kyle who was kicking up snow. “Okay,” she said, getting back into her SUV. “I’m going to pick up my son, but if you’re still here on the way back, I’ll stop again.” As she got ready to leave, she stuck her head out the window and shouted, “Welcome to Canada!” 

By then, Kyle had flung most of the snow out from around the tires. We hopped back in the car, and after lurching backward and forward a few times, managed to propel the car back onto the frozen highway and do a quick u-turn (with the front wheels still spinning on the ice) to face the right direction.

Terrified, we drove 25 mph with our hazard lights on the rest of the way to our Airbnb. When we got there, we dragged all our stuff upstairs and proceeded to drink copiously. Before heading to bed, I looked at Kyle, and said, “Welcome to Canada.”