Full Viking burial
Cascade Shores, CA — A local family from the Cascade Shores housing development is in hot water for attempting to cremate a deceased relative on Scotts Flat Lake earlier today. The Barstad family recently suffered the loss of the family’s patriarch, Norman Barstad, who had lived with the family at their Spanish Lane home.
The senior Barstad, who was 92 years old when he passed last week, requested that he receive a full Viking burial on the water. The family agreed to his last wish. Unfortunately, neither the Nevada County Health Department nor the Sheriff (who answered numerous 9-1-1 phone calls) seemed to think this was a good idea.
“Generally, the burning of bodies on an open and public water space is frowned upon,” said Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal in a prepared press statement. “And although there are no specific laws preventing a traditional Viking funeral on Scotts Flat, you can’t just set stuff on fire and send it off into the lake. Especially things as explosive as this.”
According to witnesses at the lake, the Barstad family gathered on the shore of the Nevada Irrigation District-owned lake around 11 AM on Friday. A large Dodge truck was towing what appeared to be a homemade pontoon boat. There is some debate about the makeup of the boat. Some said that it looked like a pile of logs; others said it looked like a re-purposed pontoon boat covered in kindling. What is not in question is what happened once it arrived in the middle of the lake and detonated.
Hit by Flying “Debris”
“Yeah I was fishing,” said area handyman Hank Snow in a Beacon telephone interview. “I saw these guys lower this homemade pile of sticks down the boat launch ramp. I didn’t think much of it because, well, you know, this is Nevada County and I figured it was a back-to-nature type of thing. But when no one got on the boat and then about 200 yards out it exploded into flames, I was like, ‘Holy [redacted]’ and I called 9-1-1. There was debris flying everywhere. I think I got hit with a detached finger.”
Jimmie Barstad, the son of the incinerated father who organized and built the cremation boat, said that he may have “overstocked” the vessel with too much gasoline and surplus illegal fireworks from the last 4th of July.
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