Sledding the Northwoods

Sledding the Northwoods

When it comes to winter transportation, few places have the history and enthusiasm of Wisconsin’s Northwoods. People have been traveling through the snow-covered woodlands and over the frozen lakes of Vilas County for nearly 80 years aboard motorized sleds.

In 1924, Carl Eliason began work on a “motor toboggan” during his spare time from his general store in Sayner, seven miles north of St. Germain (pop. 1,932). Though he liked to hunt, fish and trap, a crippled foot kept him from keeping up with his pals on treks through the snow. When Eliason was granted a patent for the prototype of the modern snowmobile in 1927, he was able, as long as there was snow on the ground, to get to his destination an hour ahead of his comrades.

Though the initial Eliason Motor Toboggan products had front-end engines, the final rear-engine K series models of the 1950s directly influenced Polaris, Arctic Cat, and all the other rear-engine snowmobile designs that came along in the early 1960s.

Five original Eliason Motor Toboggans are on permanent display at small Eliason Co. store on Main Street in Sayner. John Eliason Jr. and Jona Eliason Harman, two of Carl’s grandchildren, own the store.

“Snowmobiling has always been a big part of my life,” says John Jr., company president. Both John Jr. and his sister, Jona, are active members of the St. Germain Bo-Boen Snowmobile Club. Founded in 1969, the organization is the largest snowmobile club in Wisconsin with more than 600 family memberships.

“Bo-Boen is Ojibwa (Chippewa) for ‘winter fun’, which is exactly what area residents and club members work so hard to promote,” says Gary Frank, a past Bo-Boen president.

Club members use specially designed snow grooming equipment, including Arrowhead Drags manufactured in St. Germain, to maintain more than 150 miles of local snowmobile trails, which link with more than 1,000 miles of trails in neighboring counties and into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The Bo-Boens have an annual operating budget of almost $100,000 and a capital investment of $300,000, funding generated by snowmobilers through gas taxes, memberships, fund-raisers, and donations.

The Grooming Grandma of St. Germain, Shirley Bulles, and her husband Dan, a member of the Bo-Boen board of directors, volunteer to help groom trails throughout the season, sharing the responsibility with 16 other Bo-Boen driver/groomers.

Groomers go out six days a week. “Usually they’ll be maybe four people to a route and they’ll alternate, so you don’t go out every night,” says Dan, who moved to St. Germain 10 years ago when he retired.

Snowmobile activities in St. Germain include free snowmobile safety classes in late December, snowmobile trail rides, fundraisers, and a day for clearing brush from the trails. It’s no surprise that the World Championship Snowmobile Derby Track is in nearby Eagle River, and the International Snowmobile Hall of Fame and Museum is being expanded along Highway 70 west of St. Germain. The museum, now in temporary quarters on the same site, displays historic race sleds, trophies, racing videos, photos, and championship sleds, including oval, enduro, hill-climb, cross-country, and drag sleds, raced by championship drivers.

Of the 56 inductees honored in the hall of fame, 40 are racers. The rest are industry pioneers, designers, manufacturers or promoters.

“We were incorporated as a non-profit in 1986, opened our museum in 1987-88 winter, and inducted our first class in 1988, which included 10 honorees,” explains Loren Anderson, president of the Snowmobile Hall of Fame and Museum.

Anderson, Mike Trapp, a Woodruff, Wis., native and two-time world champion snowmobile racer, and C.J. Ramstad, a Minneapolis-based early photographer and publisher in the sport, came up with the idea for the museum and hall of fame in 1983. Local residents pitched in to help organize fundraisers, including an annual celebrity Ride With The Champs.

Wisconsin’s Northwoods, known for its quality trails and hospitality, was named the best overall place in North America for families to snowmobile by readers of Snow Goer magazine. With a yearly average of 60 inches of snow that comes early and stays late, Vilas County is a prime destination for snowy fun.

Ann Hattes is a freelance writer in Hartland, Wis.

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