When you want to have fun off-trail, you always look for the place where you will find the most virgin snow and a favorable welcome for off-trail snowmobiles. After having covered some of the good places in Quebec, my friends and I wanted to discover something new and unknown and go on a road trip. Northern Adventure: Northern Ontario off-trail. The Northern Ontario destination was easy to choose: it offers a vast snow-covered territory often close to or not far from major centers and is easy to access via forest roads or well-signed trails.
We set up our snowmobiles on Ken’s newly installed platform and boarded his big F250 for a 10 and a half hour ride. On the menu: coffee, jokes, snowmobile stories and a bit of philosophy for 5 cents. When you have the time, it’s a great time to talk!
We stopped for lunch at Myrt’s Family restaurant www.myrtsfamilyrestaurant.com. A simple, friendly little “mom and pops” where the burgers are perfect. Plus, the adjacent parking lot is big enough to accommodate trailers.
We take again the road and 4 hours later we arrive at our first stop: the town of Cochrane. We reserved rooms to the Station Inn www.ontarionorthland.ca/en/station-inn-hotel. It’s easy to find, there’s a huge locomotive in front!
We parked our trucks in the immense parking in front of the hotel and it is there that we unload our snowmobiles. We are not the only ones, there are about ten groups which go down or pack their machine while we prepare ourselves. The main activity here is the snowmobile of trail, but as we want to take advantage of the fact that the snowmobiles are accepted everywhere in town, we decide to circulate by snowmobile to go to visit the habitat for polar bear ( www.polarbearhabitat.ca) which is the biggest center in the world for the study of these big hairy beasts. While being there, we decide to take the guided tour to learn more. Seeing a 1000 pound bear pass within a foot of you from the other side of the large observatory window to get fed puts into perspective the strength and size of these venerable giants.
But the main reason why we make this small detour is to go and see the snowmobile museum which is housed in the same building as the polar bear habitat. We meet two of the curators of this museum illustrating a part of the history of our favorite toys. There are nearly 125 snowmobiles of all kinds and our guides know them all. They tell us about them with passion and assure us that they are all in working order. They even organize an annual ride with other collectors to raise money for good causes. It’s always fun to see an enthusiast’s eyes light up when they tell us what makes them tick. Going back to our modern snowmobiles, we can see how far we have come in the technological evolution of modern machines. I don’t think that the ancients could climb a steep hill in 4 feet of snow while doing a wheelie like ours do easily!
A little later, we are at the parking of the dam of the road 47 on the Abitibi river. We meet there our guide for the Abitibi Canyon: André Bernier as well as some members of the club of the Artic riders of Smooth Rock Falls and other “riders” who are rather fans of off-track. André is well known in the area for his snowmobile and canoe guiding services. In the summer, he even goes so far as to dress up as a coureur des bois in his large canoe to introduce the history of the French-speaking pioneers who settled in the region in the last century. They founded French-speaking communities that are still alive and well, such as Cochrane and many other French-speaking villages in Northern Ontario.
Calme et méthodique, André est le gars que tu veux avoir pour te faire découvrir sa région. Il connait chaque recoin à des centaines de kilomètres à la ronde et il peut nous raconter des histoires sur ses aventures et celles de pionniers pendant des heures. Tout au long de la journée, il va nous amener dans des spots des hors-piste trippants du canyon Abitibi. Tandis que nous nous énervons à dresser nos motoneiges avec nos ponts de 162 pouces, André nous suit calmement en montant les mêmes côtes avec son skandic! Pas de problèmes, le monsieur sait piloter.
We also meet Trevor Piper who is a regular in the canyons. A mechanic during the week, he only waits for the weekend to go have fun in the canyons. With his snowmobile, he goes everywhere. He takes us to a spot that leaves me puzzled. A descent filled with snow between two big buttes where the only way out is to go up the steep side. He suggests we go first. He goes down slowly, analyzing the place to find out how and where he will go back up. At the bottom, he makes two small circles with his machine and starts to attack the hill. His snowmobile stands up like a pole halfway up and leans a little to the left. In a fraction of a second, he lets go of the throttle and pushes his machine over the hill to get back on track. All of this without at any point feeling that he is losing control. He starts again at once and goes up in one go the hill and finishes with a crazy “wheelie” to give us a small show. We laugh and applaud the “king of the hill”.
I tackle it a little later and take advantage of the fact that the track is typed to climb the hill “full throttle”. I don’t have the credit to have made the first trace, but I have a lot of fun. In all, we will spend nearly 5 hours in the corner to play in the thick snow which we find in quantity in the Abitibi Canyon. It is really a spot of madness and moreover, the playground is immense. André explains us that we can go very far north by following the power line.
Our friends from the Artic Riders Club accompany us and smile while watching our madness. We have a small lunch in forest while talking about the snowmobile trails that the Artic riders maintain. We shall decide later to return by their entirety until Smooth Rocks Falls where we shall go to sleep in the Moose motel.
One hour later, we join Ken who went down the trailer which had remained to the dam. We meet Nai who is the new owner of the Moose. Nai arrives from India and bought the motel to make of it a spot where the amateurs of motorized sports will feel well. To do this, he is quietly renovating each room, hosting his own guests and living on site with his family. It’s funny to see how passionate he is about snowmobiling for a guy who wasn’t exactly born into it. He opens the door to his huge garage where a few snowmobiles are already parked in the warmth of the night. There is place in mass for ours that we are going to make thaw all night. We shower and we go to supper to the Chinese of next door. In the tiny village of SMR, everybody knows each other. We eat like kings and we return in the garage to take a glass by talking about… snowmobile!
In the evening, the other customers and our new friends of the Artics Riders will come to join us. We meet a group of 6 young Ontarians who also made several hours of road to come to have fun here. There is also a group of 5 snowmobilers who spend the night at the Moose during their journey of 5 days on the trails of the region. All this beautiful world socializes in English and in French. We hang our feet a bit and it turns into an improvised party with music, drinks and laughter galore. Nai will even come and join us to chat and will also bring supplies. A lot of fun!
The next day, we wake up surprisingly in good shape to go to breakfast at the Smoothie’s which is… just next to the Motel. We go there on foot, but the walk is not even long enough to feel the biting cold of the morning. We decide to go up to Hearst with the machines on the trailer to save some time and to concentrate our hike on the off-piste in the corner of Hearst. We shall not regret it. By arriving at the Companion hotel 50 minutes later, we take down snowmobiles and we dress in the enormous garage of the hotel. They are also really well equipped to welcome us. We talk with some groups of snowmobilers who come from everywhere around and also from quite far to take advantage of the trails and the off-piste that Hearst offers. They all confirm that it is one of the best spots in Ontario.
This is also where we find Dany Gratton and his friends who know the area well. Dany tells us that at 15 minutes of the Companion we will have crazy snow in mass to practise with our machines with powder. We make a small photo-stop to the statues of the mooses which are an easy and popular point of meeting then we launch out to the attack of the trail which brings us quickly to the ” snow field “. Dany did not lie, there is a good layer of virgin snow everywhere and we have to hold back the guys so that they do not hit the whole field before we could make a single photo. The three trippers make us a whole show and we have as much fun to watch them doing that as to try to do the same. Here, the snow is abundant and we can circulate practically everywhere with our machines. It feels good to be so free and welcome with our snowmobiles.
We have fun all day around the Hearst and we will even have dinner at the marina which is a popular spot for snowmobilers. After all these strong emotions, we take the way of the return the next morning. We still have stories to tell each other all the way down to our place.
Northern Ontario definitely has a lot to offer to off-road snowmobilers who are looking for new spots. In addition, the Franco-Ontarians welcome us with their happy mixture of “Franglais” giving a unique flavor to our exchanges.
