David Johnson was a real honor to have along.
 

 I guess this finally brings me to my part of this whole series of events. Ever since I found and restored that first Ranger, roughly six years ago, I’ve wondered what it would be like to recreate those voyages of the early pioneers on the same type of machinery. The more machines we found and the more restoration I did, the more I began to believe it could be a reality. Also the more machines we found we discovered that they not only of the same types these pioneers used, but a lot of them were the exact same machines.

          Finally I got up the nerve one day in May of 1984 to mention my idea to Bob Brodeur. Bob was more than excited and agreed to give me a hand. Now comes the supreme test – do I dare ask my brother Wayne what he thinks? Wayne as I mentioned before, was everything from mechanic to water boy on the original trips and he knew exactly what personality those early machines had – and it wasn’t a good one! If they didn’t want to go, they didn’t. If they wanted to go, they went – whether you were on them or not. So needless to say, Wayne’s reaction was as I expected,” you want to do what?” Do you know how far it is from here to Chamberlain Lake on one of them? And then that is if they stay running. I think your biting off more than you can chew.” After a while though he conceded that if I really wanted to do it he would give me a hand and go with us.

          Right then and there I started making plans for February 17, 1985. Once again this was with the cooperation of the Northern timber Cruisers Snowmobile Club who had helped us so much previously. I wanted the trip to be as close to the original as possible in every way. I wanted the route, lodging, machinery, and even the clothing to be as close as possible. About the only thing I decided to do differently was to allow three scouts along with us on modern sleds and for the food to be taken in with us.

       The response I got when I went public with my idea was really great and some of the people that went on the first trips were able to return to this one. The list of participants for our trip was as follows: Jack Sevigney-Jack was on several of my father’s first trips. He was the oldest on those trips and he was the oldest on ours. Jack was 79 when he went with us last February and he drove Nellie Belle Two, the very same KE-12G Voyager that he drove on those trips. The sled has never been restored and we took out the original spark plug February 17^th because it had started running rough.

           Jim Morrill and Jim Chase are next on our list. I mention them together because that’s the way they traveled on the early trips and that’s the way they traveled last year. They rode Jim Morrill’s OE-16G Voyager, the very same one he took on the 1964 trip.

           Ed Carr went with us. Ed was a very close personal friend of my fathers and went on all but one of the early trips. He traveled all the way to Pennsylvania to buy back his OE-16 Bull Cat that he had in those early years, and we restored it for the Allagash “85” trip.

           Another gentleman that went on the early trips and was back for this one was Paul Doherty. Paul, as many knew, was the Parks and Recreation Commissioner of New Hampshire for years, and had much to do with the formative years of the snowmobiling sport. Paul graciously donated a KE-35D to our museum cause two years ago. This is the sled he took on the 1963 trip, so I restored it and he drove it again on the “85” trip.

          Bob Brodeur who I described earlier also went with us. He purchased an excellent 1962 KE-95 Ranger two years ago in Minnesota and that’s what he drove.

  Edgar Hetteen is next on the list. Edgar as you know was co-founder of Polaris Industries and founder of Arctic Cat. Edgar wanted to take life a little easier, so we got him on an Indy 400, but before the trip was over he was swapping with David Johnson so he could drive David’s   O-13SR. Edgar is a very interesting gentleman and it was great having him along.  

    David Johnson was a real honor to have along. He pretty much designed and built the first Sno Traveler that started this whole industry back in 1954. He drove an O-13SR that he probably built in the first place in 1961. I traced the sled back to 1961, where it came from Roseau on a trailer with the B-55 and went on the first trip. David proved his mechanical prowess by keeping it going with a bad coil.

          Another distinguished guest that we had was C.J. Ramstad of Snowmobile magazine. C.J. replied after an invitation was given to the Antique Snowmobile Club of America for a representative to come on the trip. He didn’t drive any particular sled, but he rode on and enjoyed them all. C.J. is a great guy and thoroughly enjoys the sport of snowmobiling. He took a lot of pictures and the results are in the December issue of Snowmobile Magazine.  

 

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