snowmobile trails

Northern Ontario snowmobilers have found themselves stranded after Halfway Haven Lodge, a local accommodation and fueling spot for riders north of Sault Ste. Marie, announced on February 24 that it was closing for the remainder of the season.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, we regret to announce the immediate closure of The Halfway Haven Lodge for the remainder of the snowmobile season, effective February 24th, 2022. There will be no fuel, accommodations, or food services available, therefore we do not advise travelling the snowmobile trails to the lodge for safety reasons,” Halfway Haven wrote on Facebook.

The lodge is located smack in the middle of the Canadian Shield wilderness, accessible by car only through a 60 kilometre logging road off of Highway 101. Despite its isolation, Halfway Haven plays an integral role in the snowmobiling ecosystem of northern Ontario. It acts as a halfway point on trails connecting Sault Ste. Marie to Wawa and Chapleau, both towns that depend on snowmobile tourism.

Without Halfway Haven as a fuel stop, the machines that groom the trails aren’t able to make the full trip, meaning snowmobile trails leading to Halfway Haven have had to close.

“My groomer takes 360 litres to make it to Halfway [Haven]. He can’t carry enough fuel to return home,” explained John Breckenridge, president of the Sault Trailblazers snowmobile club. “I need fuel there, and I need a place for my operator to spend the night.”

The trips from Halfway Haven to Wawa and Chapleau are both over 100 kilometres. With trails closed due to lack of grooming, snowmobilers who headed out for a ride on February 24 found themselves stranded. Ben Pehlemann was one of them. He took to Facebook to ask if anyone had a truck that could transport six snowmobiles from Sault Ste. Marie to Wawa after the trails closed on him.

The lodge’s abrupt closure was due to Halfway Haven staff, who live at the facility for three months of the year, quitting without notice. “Unfortunately, they decided for whatever reason that they were no longer interested in being there at the lodge,” says Dan Hollingsworth, a spokesperson for Halfway Haven. The lodge did put a call out for new employees, but considering the how late into the season it is and how remote the location is, there were few applicants.

Breckenridge, however, says he heard the staff were unhappy with on-site management and that’s what prompted the walk out. In an attempt to get the lodge running again, the Sault Trailblazers have scheduled a conference call with Halfway Haven to see how the club can help. “It affects our whole district,” Breckenridge says.

At 24-years-old, the lodge’s structure is makeshift at best. Built as a hunting cabin, it runs on a diesel engine that costs $400 a day. This combined with its remote location makes staffing and upkeep difficult. To ensure the longevity of The Halfway Haven, Hollingsworth and his team at N1 Solutions are working on behalf of Korey Wischmeyer, a Michigan-based businessman who owns the lodge, to create a plan to redevelop the property.

“Our plan is to continue to work with Korey and his team to build out what we feel is a feasible new design for the facilities. We’re looking at completely modernizing and redeveloping the site, looking at reconsidering the staffing model, and then building out a feasibility study,” Hollingsworth says. “Then we’ll present the case to Korey to make a further investment into the facilities.”

As part of the plan, Hollingsworth says they’re looking at increasing the operation time to eight or nine months a year; introducing adventure-type activities, such as kayaking, canoeing, sport fishing, and improving trails for ATV use.

Ontario’s snowmobile season is in full swing and Family Day is is one of the most popular weekends for riders. The Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs says this year has been one of the most popular years on record with just over 100,000 people purchasing snowmobile permits. Yet, despite the growing interest, the OFSC is concerned that future trail use may be in jeopardy.

At the end of January, the OFSC launched its Save Our Trails campaign after landowners, who voluntarily provide parts of their property for snowmobile trail use, stated that they would restrict access due to negative interactions with riders. The federation has established a network of 30,000 kilometres of prescribed trails running across Ontario, 60 per cent of which fall on private land.

“Largely, it’s trespassing,” says Ryan Eickmeier, CEO of OFSC. “It’s leaving marked trails.” An example would be going into a farm field off of the trail or accessing the trail during times of the year when it’s not permitted.

There isn’t a concrete number on how many trails could be pulled, but with 18,000 partnered landowners, Eickmeier says it’s an issue affecting all 16 of the federation’s districts.

When access to a trail is revoked, it interrupts the OFSC permitted trail network, making it more difficult for snowmobilers to get to their desired destination. “You can only reroute in so many places,” Eickmeier says. He adds that it can also cause snowmobilers to lose access to a town they may have relied on for gas, food, or accommodations—in turn, impacting the revenue those businesses earn from snowmobilers.

To avoid this, the OFSC is asking snowmobilers to stay on the marked trails and to respect the rights and property of landowners. “I would reasonably say that some people do not understand the full significance of going off-trail,” Eickmeier says. “It may seem harmless, it may seem like something that they’re just doing and it’s not going to impact anyone. But it does.”

The OFSC has introduced an educational video about trail use that every snowmobiler must complete before being able to purchase a trail permit. Eickmeier says the federation is hoping that between the video, provincial radio PSAs, and their group of volunteer ambassadors, people will get the message.

“I think that the group that’s going to be most influential is the 100,000-plus permit buyers who literally count down the days before permits go on sale and watch weather forecasts for their first time out,” he says. “They’re the ones that are going to lose the privilege of accessing this land because a handful of people have decided that they’re above the rule of law.”

Law enforcement is patrolling trails and has been very active this year, Eickmeier adds. If a snowmobiler is found off-trail on private property, the landowner can press trespassing charges.

“We want to ensure that this incredible 30,000-kilometre network of trails that our clubs roll out each and every year is going be around for the next 50 years.”