REMEMBERING WHEN: The Golden Age of the Snowmobile

By Keith Schell

Growing up in the 1970s, it seemed as though everybody and his brother manufactured snowmobiles. Considered the golden age of the snowmobile, 1968-1982 featured 250 different manufacturers of snowmobiles, and at its peak in 1971, total snowmobile sales reached 495,000 units worldwide, a record that still stands today. Currently, there are 1.27 million snowmobiles registered in the USA and over 555,000 snowmobiles registered in Canada, with worldwide sales of 112,650 in 2024. Of that 2024 sales figure, 51,987 were sold in the USA, and 38,599 were sold in Canada.

The makes and models of snowmobiles during the winters of my country's childhood were numerous and plentiful. While I never saw all of the different makes and models back then, I still saw a considerable number of them on the frozen lakes and snowy trails around me when I was a kid.

One of our friends had a Snow Cruiser, sporting a distinctive dark robin's egg blue cowl adorned with a red and white stripe around the middle. Because the machine felt like it weighed a ton, it earned the nickname the 'snow crusher. ' To my knowledge, it was the only machine back then to feature a reverse gear for backing out of difficult places.

Moto-Ski was a strong, heavy machine that required all your might to pull the starter cord. It featured two bright white headlights under one clear sheet of plastic on its orange wedge-like cowl, so you could see a long way ahead of you when you went out for a night ride on a Moto-Ski.

One day, one of my Grandpa's neighbours approached us on the frozen lake driving a newly purchased Ski Whiz, made by tractor manufacturer Massey-Ferguson. Because most machines back then had a rounded convex cowl, the square boxy cowl of the Ski Whiz equipped with two front headlights made it appear to be a bit of an oddity in my eyes. But it certainly stood out visually from its competition.

Boa-Ski was a dark burgundy-colored machine with a convex round cowl and dual headlights. It was unspectacular at best, and you didn't see it around very much, but I did see it on occasion. They stuck out in my memory because of the name.

Another of my Grandpa's neighbours had an Arlberg, a machine featuring a black concave cowl, a single recessed headlight, and a red and white stripe around the middle. I recall my father saying that they had a tendency to fishtail a bit on the ice at high speeds.

The Sno-Prince was a tan-colored machine that never distinguished itself in my eyes as a particularly good or bad machine, but I did see them around occasionally when I was a kid.

Skiroule was an aqua-green machine that I also saw around occasionally.

Yamaha was a white machine with black and red trim back then. As a kid, I always associated them with motorcycles, so I was surprised when I saw my first Yamaha snowmobile on the frozen lake!

Polaris was a white machine with blue trim that didn't make a lot of inroads into our area when I was young, but as I got a bit older, you would sometimes see one zipping around the lake on the odd winter day.

The Scorpion was a burgundy-coloured machine that I saw ads for on television when I was in high school ("Look out Cat, look out Ski-Doo…"), but I never actually saw one in real life.

One of the two most prominent snowmobiles of the day was the Arctic Cat. Many of our country neighbours had an Arctic Cat because they had family ties to the local marina, which happened to be an Arctic Cat dealer.

And, of course, the other prominent snowmobile of the day, and the most prominent snowmobile of all time, was the current industry leader, the Ski-Doo. Originally intended to be called the 'Ski-Dog' in reference to the dog sleds it was replacing when it was launched in 1959, the name 'Ski-Doo' was an accident. The printer made a mistake printing the first brochures, calling the machine a 'Ski-Doo' instead of the actual intended name, and the new name stuck. Ski-Doo became the leader in the industry and the first brand of snowmobile our family ever had.

Nowadays, most of the snowmobile manufacturers of our youth are long gone, either swallowed up by their competition or forced into bankruptcy. With climate change today comes unpredictability in weather patterns; some years, we get snow, and some years, we don't. Because of that, the fortunes of the current-day snowmobile industry have fluctuated. If we get a few good snow years in a row, an uptick in snowmobile sales generally follows. If not, the reverse happens.

Of all the manufacturers of snowmobiles in the 1970s, only four remain today. They are: BRP (Bombardier Recreational Products, maker of Ski-Doo), headquartered in Valcourt, Quebec, Canada; Polaris Industries, headquartered in Medina, MN, USA; Yamaha Motor Corporation, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and Arctic Cat, headquartered in Thief River Falls, MN, USA (although Textron, who owns Arctic Cat, announced in December 2024 that all snowmobile production in Thief River Falls (assembly) and St. Cloud, MN (engines), will cease in the spring of 2025 with the loss of 560 jobs, citing soft demand for the product).

Because the winters of our youth were usually very steady and predictable, the snowmobile industry flourished during that time. Many of the snowmobiles from our youth have become classics, and some have even become collector's items.

If you still have a classic old snowmobile somewhere on your property, whether in a shed or out in a field, clean it off, see if it still runs, and reminisce about the happy times of your youth spent on that machine. Recall the times travelling throughout the snowy countryside or across frozen lakes with family or friends, enjoying winter life to the fullest, and doing so while growing up in the golden age of the snowmobile.