I noticed the annual vintage snowmobile show was held over the weekend in Newfolden. I didn’t attend but saw some pictures and it looked like another good show. Seeing old sleds triggers a good memory for me as winter recreation in the 60s and 70s meant snowmobiles.
You would think more of us skated than rode snowmobiles but that isn’t how I remember it. Skates were cheap which means it should have been the dominant outdoor sport but snowmobiles were where it was at for me. There were two big events in a young person’s life prior to acquiring a driver’s license; gun training and snowmobile training.
These two events were the gateway to adult recreation when I was growing up. I remember the Arctic Cat Inspector Henderson movies that instructed us on safe snowmobile operation. There was an instruction book that showed you how to ride through almost any situation although most of it dealt with negotiating ditches or riding through the woods.
My favorite thing to do in seventh grade was to ride our old John Deere 300 into Viking after school and watch my friends at basketball practice. After practice, I would give a few rides then head out prior to heading home for supper. Those nights driving around the section were the best. The sled was fairly new and never broke down. Heading south past the old Kasprick farm with a moon so bright that it almost embarrassed the anemic headlights, is a memory I still visit. It felt like I was in just the spot I belonged at the exact time set aside for me. I could see how good my life would be and the snowmobile enlisted the moon to help show me the way. I’ve had that feeling since but not with the consistency of riding that old sled.
I read a book by Edgar Hetteen titled “Breaking Trail.” It is an excellent read from the man who broke trail for the snowmobiling industry. My favorite part is when he talks about a tiny cabin that he stayed in one night during this brutal Alaskan trip. The way he described the feeling of coziness and excitement at being safe, yet on the edge of discovery, was exactly how I felt in the seventies as that big moon witnessed me and the sled as we crested the edge of the riverbank and lit out for the territories.
I think riding a snowmobile had little to do with the brand of the sled or bogie wheels versus slide rails or even who won the last big race. It was all about freedom. People in this area have a bad habit where we believe that “if great-grandpappy didn’t do it then I can’t do it either.” It’s a bad combination of fear, no imagination and laziness. It’s a hopeless prison of the mind. When I got on that sled, pulled the recoil’s t-shaped handle and saw the lights come on, there was hope.
I felt the physical freedom of the moment, my mind got a taste of that freedom and wanted more of it. The moment was a window into what it was to dream and break the bonds of restricted thinking created by small minds too timid to dare to think for themselves. It wasn’t freedom from the world, it was freedom to think for myself. It was wonderful and it all started as I glided across a glistening frozen lake on a mechanical expression of an open door.
