Popular 'family sport' benefits local tourism industry.

A century ago the dream was a transcontinental railway line linking Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Now it's a wintry dream to link groomed snowmobile trails across Ontario, thereby connecting the province to Quebec's system and on into the Western provinces.

Singer Gordon Lightfoot may have to wait before he pens an ode to Canadian snowmobiling as he did to the Canadian railway. Still, phenomenal growth is being projected for the sport of snowmobiling.

"A lot of people don't appreciate how much a family sport it is," says Don Lumley, president of the Northern Ontario Snowmobile Association.

According to the Northern Ontario Snowmobiling Development Strategy, the economic impact of snowmobiling could reach $151 million by 1996.

Snowmobiling is a booming industry throughout Northern Ontario as club memberships double each year in some areas.

Meanwhile, events such as Women on Snow Canada have the potential to attract hundreds of out-of-town participants.

Women on Snow Canada, a gathering of Canada's female snowmobilers, held its inaugural ride last year starting at the Rocky Mountain Ranch in Sudbury. The 200-mile day trip from Sudbury to Temagami attracted more than 1,000 snowmobilers, says Lumley.

TRAIL PLAN

Lumley is also the founding president of the Sudbury Trail Plan, representing eight clubs and about 9,000 members. The trail plan has more than 1,200 kilometres of trials.

A 20-year veteran of snowmobiling, Lumley's first ride down a groomed trail convinced him that the six municipalities of the Sudbury Region should have their own system.

The idea has since caught on.

Last year, for example, the trail plan reported gross revenues of $430,000. It estimates that the total will increase to $500,000 this season.

Lumley claims that snowmobiling has generated $22 million in revenue for Sudbury's tourism industry. Tourist camps and tour operators are the main beneficiaries.

The revenue is partly generated by such events as the association's Indy 500 rally. Lumley says the event made a profit of $25,000 last year and offered about $30,000 in prizes to participating riders.

Lumley is now investigating off-season uses for the trails to further increase their value to the local tourism industry. One possible use would be mountain biking.

TRAIL INTEGRATION

Lumley has also turned much of his attention to integrating Ontario's trails with those in Quebec, Manitoba and the northern U.S. states.

"We can't just build a mega-state here in Sudbury," he says.

Lumley is hitching his machines to the proposed Trans Ontario Provincial (TOP) trail system.

TOP is presently only a study of linking existing trails. If developed it would become the largest trail network in the world, at 35,000 kilometres. Quebec currently has the most trails, at 25,000 kilometres.

TOP would make it possible to ride a snowmobile from Parry Sound to the Manitoba border, but development of the system requires about $13 million in provincial funding over the next five years, says Lumley.

It is hoped that funding will be approved this spring. Construction would then begin this summer, with the first of the new trails ready for next winter.

IMPROVED COMFORT

Lumley believes that snowmobiling is increasing in popularity because the sport brings riders close to nature.

"You can go 200 miles in a day. Nothing else will give you that kind of access to the outdoors in the winter," he says.

However, Greg Hirschfled of Sudbury Cycle and Marine believes that more comfortable machines and better trail systems are making the difference.

Hirschfled reports that sales have been down the past two years. This time, however, the state of the economy is not to blame.

Hirschfled says it's been a lack of snow that has hurt sales. When it's hot outside, sales are cold.

"If it snows and gets cold, we're swamped," he says.