I was the guest of the family that would one day become my in-laws, traveling by boat in the Lake of the Woods area of Canada. We were about one day’s travel removed from civilization when the prop on the motor snagged a rock and sheared the prop pin. It was getting late and we were only about one mile from where we wanted to camp for the night, so we did one last portage and a nice quick paddle to where we set up camp. Early the next morning I started to work on the motor and was not surprised to find that no they didn’t bring any tools or spare parts with them. Knowing Mr. Murphy rather well I had thrown in a very meager hand full (OK hand half full) of tools in hopes he would spend his time elsewhere that day. The broken pin soon revealed itself and I searched our camping area and stuff top to bottom for a piece of metal to make something out of with no luck at all.
That’s when I remembered seeing a cabin on the lake just beyond the portage we had used. I was going to ask them for some metal to make a pin with. My thinking was that a common nail could be worked into the proper size for a pin easily enough. With no one home I looked inside and saw the “perfect” nail being used as a hook to hang up their wool coat just inside the door. A quick snatch with the pliers and their coat hook was on its way to be transformed into a shear pin.
The pin was worked into shape on a handy boulder back at camp and the motor put back together while the rest of the camp was waking up and getting breakfast. I think it was the test drive that finally got their attention. Since one day of motoring makes for an awful lot of paddling if the motor is broke I noted several smiles when I came back from my jaunt around the lake.
To a non-mechanical family it was better than magic, my soon to be father in law could not of been more impressed if I had conjured up fire from my fingertips. Me I was just happy I didn’t have to paddle back.

Good story, thanks.