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As the first breaths of winter come blowing into Saskatchewan, snowmobiling enthusiasts are preparing for another season.
In Meadow Lake, that means the celebration of a new warming hut being finished — the third in as many years — by the Northern Lights Snowmobile Association.
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According to Kelly Schmidt, club president, the first was a rebuild of an existing shelter and the subsequent two were brand new builds: the Napa Shack located in Meadow Lake Provincial Park and the Meadow Lake Ram Shelter, which was recently completed and is located on the on the Trans Canada trail 109A on the way to Chitek Lake.
“This one here…replaces our old Northern Lights shelter that was built 30 years, so it was in pretty rough shape,” he said.
“More and more people were using it to warm up and it was the right amount of distance from Meadow Lake to take younger kids out snowmobiling.”
Due to its popularity, the decision was made to do some updating by building bigger and better and each shelter costs roughly $30,000 to $35,000 — paid for by the club itself but they get help from shelter sponsors to recoup some of the costs.
“The one that it replaced had plywood outside walls and plywood inside walls and 2×6 benches screwed to the wall,” he said.
“The one that we have replaced it with, we’ve tried to make it quite a bit nicer.”
According to the SSaskatchewan Snowmobiling Association website, over 60 clubs call the trails of Saskatchewan home and they look after the 15,000 kilometres of groomed trails and over 100 shelters that dot the countryside – all with volunteers. The club in Meadow Lake is responsible for keeping 271 km of trails in proper order.
The shelter, built by BEG4 Construction last year, was delivered earlier this fall and measures 16-foot by 16-foot. Although the building came built with a roof, door and windows, the club’s crew then went to work insulating and putting the finishing touches on it.
The club’s area covers trails to the south of Turtle Lake, nearly to Goodsoil and halfway to Chitek Lake so Schmidt hopes one more shelter can be added to their territory. Currently, the club boasts eight to 10 volunteers and they’re looking for more to join.
“Other clubs…have like 50 or 100 or more a 100 volunteers that come out…we would love to have more help.”
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