RR sledders vote to join Emo and Fort Frances

By Ken Johnston

Editor

Rainy River Wildland’s Snowdusters Snowmobile Club (WSSC) members voted unanimously Thursday to proceed with an amalgamation with Emo and Fort Frances clubs.

Acting WSSC President Brian Russell was disappointed with the turnout at the meeting and cautiously optimistic about the future of the new club.

“We only had ten members out. I had hoped that with all the publicity we would have had all kinds of people there,” said Russell Friday.

Last year the club had 13 members. One new one showed up at the meeting but was ineligible to vote Thursday. Four proxies were sent in for a total of 13 votes in favour of the amalgamation.

Russell said those present went around and around the options open to the club. Status quo was definitely not one they considered. With over 300 km of trails to maintain and only nine members last year, the task of grooming the trails, maintaining signs, erecting markers on the river and the vast amount of paperwork involved and the club membership sees it as a very daunting task.

Russell also said, “The age of the members we do have also is making it more and more challenging to get it all done.”

It is hoped that by joining Emo and Fort Frances, both of which are already working on amalgamating, that the paperwork will be cut out for Rainy River members. Russell said that will lift a heavy burden off the members here.

On Thursday they appointed two directors to attend a meeting in Emo on November 24th where Emo will introduce a motion to add Rainy River to the process. If it passes the amalgamation will begin.

Russell said that some of the local members wanted to shut down the club completely, but after much discussion they decided to give the amalgamation a try. If the club did dissolve there would be another big job facing them before all was said and done; the 300 km+ of trails would have to be dismantled. All the signs, bridges and gates erected by the club over the past decade or so would have to be removed.

So why has membership gone from a high of 140 to 13 in the past several years? Russell said that the Ontario trail permits have become very expensive. This year the permits are $180 before Dec. 1st and $230 afterwards. That coupled with winters with very little snow and the membership has become almost nonexistent.

Russell said the high permits here are very hard to swallow when just across the border in Minnesota they are $17 per year. The low cost in Minnesota is tied to the fact that the state looks after trail maintenance and development. Here there is a provincial snowmobile association (Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs).

The vast majority of clubs are in the densely populated southern and eastern part of Ontario. They have many members and Russell said, “They don’t want more riders. It is too crowded already. There they have riders per kilometer, here we have kilometers per rider.”

The low number of members here has meant that OFSC has had to subsidize trail maintenance here. And even though those costs are subsidized by the organization, the number of members being so low means there are few people to groom many kilometers of trails.

Russell said aging demographics are also part of the problem. Older people aren’t riding as much and the few young people in the region, if they are riding are not buying trail permits. He thinks an idea that is being used in some western provinces might really help here. “In Saskatchewan when they register their snowmobile they have to buy a trail permit.’ Russell said that is being looked at in Manitoba and could help here. If people had to buy a trail permit they might take an interest in the club, trail maintenance, activities and trail developments.

Going to Emo to represent Rainy River’s club will be Russell and Arie Romyn. Russel said the Emo meeting is open to the public and hopes that more people will take an interest in the once booming winter sport.