If you ask someone living near Wreckhouse, NL, what the wind is like there, they’ll claim it’s the second most windy place in the world. Whether they’re entirely accurate or not, they’re not exaggerating that it’s windy there – Wreckhouse regularly sees gusts exceeding 200KM per hour.

The winds are so fierce because of the lay of the land – Wreckhouse is a flat, barren strip running between the Long Range Mountains. It’s a true wind tunnel. Way back when trains ran through this plane of land, it was a hard go for train conductors because those wild winds could blow a train clear off its tracks.

Back when Sherry Ryan’s father worked with the NL Railway, there was a trapper named Lauchie MacDougall who claimed he could “smell the wind” on a particularly bad day. He became known as the human wind gauge, and was given $20 a month and a telephone to warn trains about windy southeasterlies ahead.

While Lauchie’s duties these days would have been replaced by modern technology, this literal lifesaver will live on in history, and thanks to Sherry Ryan’s new single, in local song as well. For years, Sherry enjoyed her father’s stories about working on the railway, particularly the ones about Lauchie, the human wind gauge.

“My dad was a great storyteller,” she says. “I loved the enthusiasm in his voice when he explained the mystery phone call from Lauchie. He was very young at the time, and being in charge of the railroad was a big responsibility. I feel blessed to be able to pass on the story.”

Sherry’s father, Jim Ryan, helped her write the song and produce the video before he passed away in July of this year. That same month, they shot the video with Flower Hill and the Newfoundland Railway Pensioners at the Railway Museum in St. John’s. Enjoy the video above.