antique eskimo

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In the fall of '71, my parents were talking over dinner about buying a snowmobile, but my Mom was lobbying for a new stereo.

I was hoping for the snowmobile, but considering who cooked the meals, cleaned the house, did the laundry and was raising 6 kids, I thought those chances next to nil!

About a month later as I was coming off the school bus, my sister comes running and yelling, "Hurry up take off your boots and come into the living room and see our new snowmobile."

As I kicked off my boots and headed for the living room, I started to wonder why would they put a snowmobile in the living room? As I turned the corner there it was, a 6-foot long, 3-foot high and 3-foot wide stereo.

Being 11, you must know what was going through my mind - either run away from home or strangle my sister. Lucky for her the only thing that I came up with was spreading salt between her sheets. This was as far as I could go without getting a cuff in the back of the head, and it seemed to have worked really well for 3 days in a row.

As we sat down for dinner that evening listening to the "snowmobile" playing in the living room, my parents said that there was still a good chance of getting a sled, but when, was the bigger question. A week passed, and then coming off the bus, there was my mother and brother looking out the living room window with big smiles on their faces.

As I walked into the house my mother said, "Don't take off your boots cause your father wants you in the garage." As I entered the garage, there it was - a 1971 lime green Eskimo, and father looked at me with a big smile and said, "You better go and get your helmet if you want to go for a ride." Six seconds later I was back, fully dressed and ready to ride.

Just like always, Ma and Pa came through for the kids. Every Saturday and Sunday morning for the rest of the winter, Pa would fill that tank up in the morning, and my brother and I drove the snowmobile all day.

A better(?) idea
One day my father had an idea. He wanted to see how this sled would pull if we hooked a trailer to it. We had an old Bolens trailer and he hooked it on the back. Just then, my brother got on the sled, and with my father on the trailer, off they went.

Traveling through the bush in the backyard, my father yelled to my brother to go faster. But it was hard for my brother to hear over the engine and with his bulky helmet. So he stopped and my father told him, with a loud voice, to speed up.

So off they go with the pedal to the metal. As my father was hanging on for dear life he noticed that the nut and bolt holding the trailer to the hitch were turning, but in opposite directions.

You know what that means.

My father yelled to my brother to stop, but now he can't hear a thing with that engine running full out. So off came the nut and on the next mogul the trailer tilted up just enough to pop out the bolt and down went the trailer's tongue. When it hit the packed snow the trailer came to a quick stop, but my father did not.

Off he went, just like doing a belly flop in the pool. Still my brother didn't know that the trailer (and our father) was missing until he got home. We were all outside, including my mother, who asked, "Where's your father?"

My brother couldn't hear her so he shut off the machine and took his helmet off before she asked again. If you could have seen the look on my brother's face when he turned around and saw our Pa was not there, his eyes were as big as saucers.

He immediately got on the machine and headed back. There was Pa walking with the tongue of the trailer under his armpit and snow packed in all around his helmet. It sure was a big laugh during dinner that night.

Years have passed. My parents moved to Alberta in 1978, and I got a job in southern Ontario. But we kept our cottage up north and kept the snowmobile there, where it sat for 20+ years.

In 2005, I was at the cottage taking a tree down, and as I was cutting the tree up, I noticed a big mound of leaves. Curiosity called me to the pile and I noticed a tarp sticking out, so I lifted it up and there was the old Eskimo.

Flashbacks came pouring in. So I decided to give this thing a second life. I loaded it in the back of the truck and took it home.

Let the restoration begin
One good thing about this restoration project - the whole undercarriage was made of aluminum and was still in great shape. The cowling on the other hand was in very bad shape as there were chunks of fiberglass missing. But the boogie wheels and track were in good shape.

The seat was full of ants, just like the seat from the Bolens Hus-Ski that I had restored earlier that appeared in AmSnow's Feb 2007 issue. Replacing the seat was the most expensive part of this restoration.

The 277cc Sachs single-cylinder motor was still in good running condition, just needing a good carb cleaning. But I had to make a new windshield and repair the 6-inch holes in the cowling by laying down five layers of fiberglass before grinding it down smooth. I then took a broken piece of the cowling to the auto paint shop where we matched the sled's original color.

So, with a new paint job and new decals made, plus a new seat, it all started to come together. There was a lot less work restoring this one compared to that Hus-Ski I did last. There was no welding whatsoever.

Apparently, Eskimos are not so common, at least in Ontario. This is the only Eskimo I've seen at any snowmobile show, and a lot of people at shows say they've never even heard of one. No doubt that's one reason it took the People's Choice Award at the Bellwood Lake Vintage Snowmobile Rally in Fergus.

Now that it's restored, I took the Eskimo to Ma and Pa's house over the summer where my dad shows it off to all his friends. More stories!

Total cost for this restoration was just $500 and about 40 hours of work, plus a case of Molson. It's possible this might be the last snowmobile I restore too, as I've taken on bigger challenges. In fact I just finished restoring a 1956 Chevy pickup. Then again, if an old and rare sled happens to come my way, one can never tell.

If you have questions about the Eskimo please email Joe at pianoman9@sympatico.ca