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The Great Northern Ride is really what snowmobiling is all about. It’s the sledding lifestyle at its finest.
I had the pleasure of joining the 9th Annual Great Northern Ride in February ’09, a six-day ride from Cold Lake, Alberta, to Manitoba. People from all walks of life, generations, and experience levels come together for this ride with common goals, to experience Canada’s winter wonderland and to raise money for handicapped children from Brantford, Ont. In addition to the fantastic riding, you always go home knowing you were also part of something that also benefited others.
No easy task
This ride had more than 77 riders, plus support staff so putting this together is no easy task, the logistics and trying to plan for the unforeseen is always a challenge.
First, the Great Northern Riders met at Toronto International Airport, our group of riders took up the lion’s share of the seats on this flight, which made for a lot of fun en route to Edmonton, Alberta, a 2,113-mile flight. To put that into perspective, it’s only 1,161 miles from Detroit, Mich. to Orlando, Fla., so this is almost 1,000 miles further.
Once in Edmonton we took a luxury bus/coach north 240 miles to Cold Lake. During the ride I couldn’t help but notice how flat the prairies really are. As we got closer to Cold Lake, in the middle to upper part of Alberta, the terrain got more interesting with some rolling hills and forests.
Cold Lake is well known for its Canadian Forces base and this town has all the services of a large town. Our bus was filled with anxious snowmobilers waiting to get started and to see their sleds and gear that had been sent from Ontario a week earlier. The equipment was shipped in three semi-trailer trucks.
We all stayed at the Imperial Inn our first night and once there, we were greeted by our 77 sleds unloaded and parked securely for the night. We even had a beautiful sprinkling of fresh powder to top off the perfect greeting.
The next morning we started from the Inn with a local club representative as our leader. The police were on hand to block traffic in both directions for us to cross the road; we then rode the ditches to Cold Lake where we broke into smaller riding groups.
The ride
As we rode across the vast Cold Lake we headed north using the lake markers to guide us. Somewhere on Cold Lake we crossed into Saskatchewan and then on the north end of the lake we rode into Meadow Lake Provincial Park and onto a freshly groomed trail. It looked like the groomer had made its first pass through here that season. I was close to the lead group and I caught up with some local snowmobile club riders. This was a good thing as the signage in this part of the province is poor and the trails not often traveled.
The ride through the park was interesting as we followed the river most of the way to our night’s destination in the town of Meadow Lake. We stayed at the Super 8, which was one of few places large enough to accommodate us and our support staff.
Meadow Lake is a large town that has several services, even dealers for all 4 sled brands. As it turned out our group was busy at both the Polaris and Ski-Doo dealers. A couple riders were a little too excited the day before and hadn’t checked their oil levels before leaving for the day’s ride. Two Ski-Doos seized that day, but those riders traded them for new units that would be ready in the morning.
We woke up to fresh powder on day two and I led our group of four to the southeast, out of town and down the trail. There were some trail markers, but no scratch lines to follow in the fresh snow. I came to a clearing, an open area with no tracks. I saw an opening on the other side, so I went for it. With no signs, we continued down this trail for some time, the trail got narrower and rougher. I thought to myself, there is no way we should be going down this goat path.
Just then I saw a sign to Turtle Lake. I stopped and our group pulled out the map for clarification. Oops, we were on the wrong trail! Making the only marks in the fresh snow, I knew that there would be a crowd of followers not far behind. We stopped and turned around.
During rest stops that day there were several people talking about the wildlife, moose, deer, etc. As we got closer to the town of Big River the scenery got better and better. Certainly one would expect to see some form of wildlife here as Big River is just west of Prince Albert National Park, a spot where snowmobiles are not permitted.
Big River is a small town cast in a park like setting. Everyone we met from Saskatchewan was friendly and helpful, but people from Big River went out of their way to make this trip happen and made our stay memorable. We had several groups scattered all over town in five different motels and some of our riders were even billeted into people’s homes. Our dinner and entertainment later that evening was at the local community center. This was certainly, western hospitality at its finest.
The great COLD north
Day 3 we made our way to Candle Lake. This is another small community also known for great hunting. This was another sunny day of scenic riding, albeit VERY cold (-15 F). As we pulled into town we wanted to top off our fuel, because the following day was supposed to be even colder.
Our riders were once again spread all over town. The largest group stayed at the Minowokaw Lodge, an older establishment featuring every stuffed wild animal you could think of on its walls.
The next morning (Day 4) was even colder. Several riders had trouble starting their sleds, but everyone got going in good time. This day we headed to the large town of Nipawin and covered a variety of terrain, from forests to open prairies. We rode through the Narrow Hills Provincial Park toward the end of the day and also crossed a huge hydro dam. The dam itself was part of the trail.
This was a frigid day of riding with several stops to defrost and try to keep our helmets clear. Even the modern helmets needed the exhaust systems cleared of frost and ice.
Entering Nipawin we felt that we had made it back to civilization, certainly there was a sense of relief. We stayed at the Northern Greens Hotel, the other half of our riding group stayed at the King Fisher Inn. When we checked in, our gear was in the lobby waiting for us. Several riders were lounging around the fire in the front lobby talking about the day’s ride, the cold and the wildlife they saw.
Day 5 was colder still, hard as that is to believe!
Most machines would not start and only the smaller 600 2-strokes and new Ski-Doo 4-TECs, could turn over fast enough to fire, everything else requiring heat guns, blow dryers, quick start, a boost or a warm garage. It was so cold one small group of Great Northern Riders (GNR) decided to opt out and rented a U-haul truck to travel to the next stop. This group became known as the, “U-haul Gang.”
We didn’t break any speed records this day, traveling at a slower, more comfortable pace, and not exactly blasting across the prairies. I remember thinking, it was a good thing that we didn’t have far to travel to our next stop in Hudson’s Bay. This small town was formerly known as Hudson’s Bay Junction, because the early train service crossed through here for service to Hudson’s Bay and to serve the extreme north. This town also is known as the moose capital, although I’m sure it was too cold for them as well. People here were extremely friendly.
Half of our group stayed at Gerry’s, a hotel in town. Gerry Desrochers mother, Grace, who is still very active in the hotel business, knew we were coming. She believed in our fundraising for handicapped children and started her own fundraising on our behalf. She collected funds for several months and was proud to be part of our charity ride. During our stay she presentated her funds to Bob Cassie, the ride’s chief organizer.
A final fun day
The final day warmed up considerably as we headed west into Manitoba. Our final destination was Duck Mountain Lodge, which is very close to the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border. We headed south out of town and we weren’t on the trail 5 minutes before we saw two large moose on the trail just before we passed through the town of Norquay, where the prairie meets the pine tree forests.
Our last leg took us east to Duck Mountain Provincial Park. This park has a trail that goes into both provinces and we had to follow the trail to complete the journey of three big provinces in a week. Thankfully when we arrived at Duck Mountain Lodge it was big enough for whole our group and was right on Madge Lake, a beautiful spot that is a regular sledder’s hot spot.
In the afternoon several riders headed down to the lake for some drag racing on a course set up in advance. So we joined in for the fun for bragging rights.
Later that evening, GNR’s Caissie conducted a meeting to recap the week’s festivities. GNR exceeded its fundraising goals once again. This year’s ride raised more than $150,000 for handicapped children.
More info:
www.thegreatnorthernride.com