MANITOULIN—As the snowflakes pile up in ever growing numbers with the early snowfalls, a sledder’s mind turn to dreams of the open trails—but not so fast, caution Manitoulin Snowdusters, those trails are not yet open for business and there is more than the coming thaw and warming temperatures getting in the way.
Newly minted Manitoulin Snowdusters president Darren Dewar chatted with The Expositor on how the upcoming season is developing.
“Normally, at our first meeting in December, we would be talking trail signs and when we could get going on the trails, all the usual questions,” said Mr. Dewar. But this year there is another drift in the way—a somewhat bureaucratic but necessary one.
It all comes down to insurance and the new strictures being applied to the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs’ (OFSC) insurer. (The OFSC is a volunteer-led not for profit association that provides the voice for organized snowmobiling in the Province of Ontario.) Most of the trail fees paid by Snowduster members go to this parent organization, which in turn goes to provide the insurance that protects property owners from liability from the trails crossing their property.
“Since the spring, at the Ontario level, they have been required by the insurance company to update the maps of all the trails, all of the properties, that have a memorandum of understanding that allows the use of the trails,” he said.
“Since the close of the 2023/2024 season, OFSC club volunteers have been engaged in the largest trail data project in the history of our Federation,” notes the OSTF website. “This effort focuses on using precise GPS data generated by our grooming activity to realign our digital trail footprint; with a network the size of ours, you can be sure that volunteers have had a much busier summer than normal. This is still very much a work in progress, and clubs will spend the fall and early winter finalizing their network alongside the countless gracious landowners in our communities.”
The insurance coverage provided by the OFSC supplier is nothing to sneeze at—a cool $15 million that covers liability, not only for the trail use, but all the property owner’s land. “Not all that many people know that it doesn’t just cover the trails,” said Mr. Dewar. “Even if the property is 100 acres and the trail only crosses 30-feet of a corner of the property—they are covered.”
But right now, the issue is that too much of the trail map is not coloured green (meaning an MOU allowing the trail has been registered). The biggest culprit, it turns out, is the Ministry of Transportation (MTO).
Mr. Dewar explained that whenever a trail crosses over a road, the MTO must give permission. That part has already been registered—but when it comes to the ditch running portion (also on MTO property) things have not yet progressed, and that is a very big deal.
“If that doesn’t happen, we are in trouble,” said Mr. Dewar.
He explained that many of the trails depend on being able to connect to other parts of the trail by “running the ditch” alongside a highway. “There are places, take Killarney for instance, where they wouldn’t have any trails if they couldn’t use the ditches.” Right now, even though much of the system map is a nice shiny green, too much of it remains black.
But Mr. Dewar remains confident that all of the ducks will eventually line up.
Even if everything was set and ready to go in the MTO department, the trails would still not be open.
“You can’t run a trail across a swamp until the ground is frozen,” he notes—and there is a lot of wet ground to be found on the trails, not to mention those portions of the trails that take place on the frozen surface of a lake (no, the picket lines are not in place to Killarney and won’t be for a couple of months yet given recent history).
In the meantime, the work being done to enhance the sport of snowmobiling across the province by countless volunteers goes on.
