FAM Tour 2008 Review

FAM Tour 2008 Review
As many of you know I was awarded the OFSC volunteer of the year award back in September at the OFSC AGM. This came as a total surprise to me since I never once gave much thought to the work I do for organized snowmobiling. There are literally thousands of people that volunteer each year to make this sport what it is, I just do my small little part of things but I am glad I had to the chance to represent all of the volunteers this year.
Part of the award was a trip, known as a FAM tour to the Ontario’s Wilderness Region or as we know it D14, to ride with and film some upcoming episodes for STV/Snow Goer. I was able to take one person with me; since my wife is ill and cannot ride I chose to take my son Adam with me. He is a resident of Kirkland Lake and a local radio host for CJKL radio.
We were based at the Quality Inn in the City of Temiskaming Shores, the city also partly sponsored this trip and provided us with a guide, James Franks the Tourism and Events Coordinator for the City of Temiskaming Shores. James did a wonderful job of hosting us and never once got us lost. We met up with Marty and Jeff from STV/Snow Goer and after breakfast at Gillies Truck Stop we readied the sleds and headed off for our warm up trip to Temagami. The STV crew brought 4 new sleds for us to ride; a Ski Doo 800 Renegade XP, Yamaha FX Nitro, Arctic Cat TZ1 turbo touring and a Polaris IQ FST Touring.
Day 1; It was a warm bright sunny day with little or no traffic on the trails so we had lots of time for filming and seeing the different sites of the area. Lunch was served at Temagami Shores Inn & Resort where we met with the Mayor of Temagami; Ike Laba. Ike provided us with a brief history of the area and some of the challenges that the area is facing, we also received directions to a few must visit sites. On the way to and back we swapped sleds every few miles to get a feel for each sled. For someone like myself who has had very little time on different machines this was a treat to try each sled throughout the entire ride. We made our way back to Temiskaming Shores and had supper at Roosters Bar and Grill.
Day 2 proved to be our biggest and busiest riding day. We had breakfast at Gillies Truck Stop and headed on our way towards Larder Lake and on to Kirkland Lake, where we were to have lunch and meet up with OFSC President Bruce and Liz Robinson. We were joined just outside of Kirkland Lake by Don Studholme Director Department of Corporate Services for the Town of Kirkland Lake. Don was our escort and tour guide in and out of town and showed us a few sites and shared some history of the area with us.
We had our lunch and did some interviews and headed on out of town for our next destination of Goganda where we would be staying overnight at Auld Reekie Lodge. Of course we had to stop every few miles to do some filming. We arrived just before dark and had a huge meal served by our hosts; Urs and Diane Brunner. Everyone was tired and sleep came real fast.
At this point I would like to mention how much of a change it was for me to see Municipalities and local businesses so heavily involved in the operations and maintenance of the trails throughout this area. It was very evident that these people realize the importance of organized snowmobiling and the economic impact that their hard work goes towards. Next time you travel through an area think about the business owner that works days to keep his business open and works on the trails in their spare time or the participation of the local municipality to allow the trails on certain pieces of property so we can get to various services.
Day 3; We awoke to -19c, after a small breakfast we headed out and found our way towards Matachawan. Although our preplanned route was to go through Shining Tree we opted for a shorter route so we would have more time for stops and sight seeing. We made our way to Elk Lake and had lunch at the Elk Lake Eco Resource Center where Pam Hamel the General Manager gave us a tour of the center. It seems Elk Lake has many well kept secrets and this place is one of them, it will certainly be on my list of places to visit again. We had heard about this Lake that had some ice falls on both sides, our guide James contacted a number of people in the area and finally found a local man who was going ice fishing and had him guide us to this hidden lake. It was a bit tough to get into but once we were there we spent about one and half hours there taking pic’s and video. Well worth the time and effort to see. We moved on and said good bye to our local guide( I never did get his name), since there was a few more sites we needed to cover on the way back to Temiskaming Shores. We traveled the A trail out of Elk Lake, stopping at the old train bridge and Club Echo’s Clubhouse before emerging back into farm country. All of the trails in the area that we rode in were in very good condition with only a few bumps in the corners from the weeks traffic but all the Clubs were out making everything perfectly smooth again. We renamed the “A trail” from Elk lake to Earlton “the perfect trail”, honestly there was nothing more anyone could do to make this trail any more perfect. It was table top smooth all the way, nice and wide and had a perfect mix of terrain and scenery as did all of the trails in this area. What a wonderful finish to a perfect trip.
We had supper at the Green Tomato in Temiskaming Shores with Claude Aumont from the OTMPC and swapped a few stories.
I always knew the STV/SnowGoer crew would be fun to ride with and they were. Marty and Jeff were very professional and fun to ride with. Thanks Guys for having us along.

Special thanks should go out to:
All the volunteers of D14 that maintain the excellent trails we had to ride on.
The OFSC Volunteers in Action Program
OTMPC
Ontario’s Wilderness Region
The City of Temiskaming Shores
Corporation of the Town of Kirkland Lake
The Municipality of Temagami
STV/SnowGoer
Polaris
Arctic Cat
Yamaha
BRP – Ski Doo
Choko Clothing (my personal choice)
Baffin foot wear