‘A wall of white’: Woman recounts harrowing drive on Saskatchewan highway

On what was supposed to be a clear summer day, some people in the province dealt with something entirely different in southwest Saskatchewan on Monday afternoon.

Jennifer Gauthier says she and some friends were driving eastbound on the Trans-Canada Highway past Morse after returning from a biking trip in Alberta when they encountered “unbelievable” conditions.

“It was like a snowstorm, but it was in the summer,” Gauthier said. “If you’ve ever been caught on the highway in a snowstorm where it’s a complete whiteout like in a blizzard, that’s exactly what it was like.

“It was clear and then all of a sudden we just hit a wall of white. Going into it, we saw three motorcycles in front of us, then in an instant, they disappeared.”

Gauthier is under the impression that it was salt getting blown around that caused the poor visibility, as there are lots of salt deposits in the region.

She said well over a dozen vehicles were on the side of the road, some with severe damages.

Gauthier says her vehicle had a really close call itself.

“The vehicle that came from behind us, we figure they must have swerved and clipped our bike on our vehicle,” she said. “We were really shaken up.

“Luckily, we got out of there safe and not injured. But I’m not sure everyone else was so lucky because the highway was littered with cars and people standing everywhere. It was very scary and chaotic.”

Pictures Gauthier took show pieces of debris scattered over the road and multiple vehicles appear to have their airbags deployed.

Gauthier said they saw RCMP officers driving in from the east as they were getting out of the area to safety.

“It was very scary,” she said. “It was unbelievable, nothing I ever want to experience again and it just came on so suddenly.

“It was such a confusing time for all of us.”

As of Tuesday morning, the RCMP had not issued a statement regarding what happened. 980 CJME has reached out to the Mounties to get more details.