FORT KENT, Maine — A Fort Kent woman who stepped outside during a work break on Saturday was presented with a sight so amusing she felt compelled to snap a photo which has since been shared hundreds of times on Facebook.
Tracy Caron was on her break as manager at Bee-Jay’s Tavern in Fort Kent when she noticed a car parked at the neighboring Irving gas station with a snowmobile strapped on the vehicle’s roof.
“I couldn’t resist,” Caron said of taking the photo. “I thought it was pretty resourceful.”
Caron posted the image on her Facebook page along with the caption: “I thought I’d pretty much seen everything until now……”
The owner of the car, Cody Veilleux, 19, of neighboring Clair, New Brunswick, later spotted the post and commented to Caron on the site, “Hey, that’s my car … haha.”
When reached Wednesday, Veilleux told The County, that he was visiting with relatives in Fort Kent Saturday when he got the idea to load his uncle’s 2017 Ski-Doo onto his Subaru Legacy.
“I just had an idea that I wanted to put the snowmobile on my car to test the car a little bit,” Veilleux said Wednesday. “It’s a winter beater.”
Veilleux, a diesel mechanic, said he loaded the Ski-Doo using his uncle’s tractor and secured the machine with three straps funneled through the partially open windows of the car.
The young man said he was surprised to see Caron’s picture of his car online.
“My friend shared it, so I saw it when I was scrolling through Facebook,” Veilleux said. “It has something like 200 shares so that was pretty funny.”
It is perfectly legal to carry a snowmobile atop a car “as long as it’s secure,” Fort Kent Police Chief Tom Pelletier said on Wednesday. Pelletier chuckled when he indicated that he too had seen Caron’s photo in his own Facebook feed.
Veilleux stayed with his grandparents in Fort Kent Saturday night to attend a family photograph session the next day.
“My mom lives in Fort Kent so I go to Fort Kent often. It’s like my second home,” he said.
Veilleux and his uncle removed the snowmobile from atop his vehicle on Sunday night.
There isn’t enough snow on the ground for snowmobiling yet in The County, a fact Veilleux, whose first language is French, light heartedly pointed out when he too shared a photo on Facebook of his car carrying the Ski-Doo.
“No snow this year so this is how we riding sled this year,” he wrote.
