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Mark Franklin, president of Esterhazy Super Sledders, says it takes a full week for the volunteers to fully complete the trails.

“We snowbunch, we’ve got little machines that go around and make bunches of snow to stick the signs in, but to do the whole trail doing that, takes about five days with two people snowbunching,” he says.

“To actually sign the trail completely takes about seven days, and that’s with two sleds and two people. If we had four to six people with us, it would take maybe four days or five days, but it winds up being seven to eight days to do the whole thing.” 

The total length of trails that snowmobilers can ride through Esterhazy is 168 km. 

Franklin says he has lost count of the number of stakes and signs that have to be put up across the trail, but it’s about $20,000 worth of equipment. 

“It’s something that I enjoy, going out in the snowmobile and being on it. It was actually myself and our late president, who were the ones who started this. At the time we found out about the trails being for sale and it wasn’t being used for 10 years, so we paid the back taxes on it and started making it a year-round trail.”

Before being president for the club, Franklin says he was a volunteer for 27 years and an executive member for an additional 15 years.

“The Super Sledders has always been here and it’s a snowmobile club, and then around the time of the late 2000s, that was a time where we did start with the SSA to get set up, start our trails and get them approved.”

He says it’s important to keep the trail alive. However this year, Franklin says he felt the weight of having limited volunteers to help prep the trail for the season.

“We’re like all clubs, we’re in a slow death spiral with volunteering, it’s a struggle and every year it’s a struggle.”

Trails need volunteers to help repair damage

In the summer, the trails in Esterhazy are also used for ATVs. Yet, with limited volunteers to maintain the trails, Franklin says the use of the trails from ATV users have caused permanent damage to them. 

“The snowmobilers are paying their fair share, their paying for the winter time for us to go out and do this, but the thing is in the summer time, there is no revenue.”

“The ATV users are paying nothing, some people were buying memberships and saying, well I’m a member paying $30 and that’s fine, but a membership to a service club isn’t to just get on the trail. That should be a permit or something,” he says.

“That’s where it got to people thinking that if I buy a membership I’m okay to ride the trail. They wanted to be a member to ride the trail, and that’s kind of been the way for the last few years but, we’re trying to change that.”

“We want people to buy a membership to the club to come out and help, because that’s what you join a club for. “

There was a meeting held in December with about 45 ATV attendees. 

At the meeting Franklin says he discussed the potential closing of the trail in the summer, due to the damages to the trail caused by its excessive use.

“We need a group of people to step up and take this on because we just can’t anymore. We need volunteers and ATV users to come out, I mean they’re using it extensively. There’s over 1,000 off-road vehicles in this area that would have access to that trail.”  

He says people can help repair the damages of the trails so that they can still be used in the summer time, they just need to volunteer.

“The big thing is people. It’s people coming out and helping. We had this meeting asking people to come out and help keep the trails open, something that they use and enjoy.”

“There’s probably over 1,000 dirt bikes, ATVs, UTVs in the area, in which a vast majority of people have access to this trail and use it (during the summer). I mean we know there’s hundreds and hundreds of bikes on the weekend, and in the summer time there’s more people on it.”

Franklin says the possibility of closing the trails in the summer is high, but if enough people volunteer to help maintain the trails, then there may not be any risk of shutting them down.

“Since this (meeting) happened, we’re up to 127 members, we’ve had a lot of people pay $30 membership fee, and a lot of people donate because they understand there’s an issue, and I don’t think they understood it before,” says Franklin.

Franklin says the club as regular monthly meetings to discuss ideas on how to bring more volunteers in and to discuss potential permit fees, in order to keep the trails alive during the summer time.

“When it comes to riding the trail (in the summer) that’s going to be a whole separate thing. If you want to ride your ATV on the trial then you would pay a $40 or $50 yearly or weekend fee, that sort of thing.”

In addition to the fee members pay during the winter for snowmobiling, Franklin says there may be a potential summer fee for ATV users.

How people can help Esterhazy trails all year

Franklin says he does not mind volunteering his time to groom the trails with others, he just wishes to see more people who use the trails, volunteering as well.

“It’s a sense of pride, like I was one of the people who originally started (grooming) when we bought this trail,” he says.

“It’s a beautiful trail, it’s a huge asset to the community, and that’s why the four of us have stuck doing it. It’s just, we’ve got to the point where we’re tired of doing it. It shouldn’t be us here anymore, it should be the next generation taking over.”

Franklin says at the next Esterhazy Super Sledders meeting, he’s hoping to see more people step up in volunteering.

“It’s just another way of saying that we need people. We need people to come out and get involved. There’s going to be a group, hopefully at this next meeting.”

Individuals who are interested on becoming a member to the club, and volunteering their time to help maintain the trails in both the winter and summer time, can reach out to: [email protected].

“Our meetings are the first Tuesday of the month at 7:30 at the Legion Lounge. We also have a public Facebook page where we post information for members and the general public. There is info on there as to how to purchase a membership or donate through e-transfer which we have pretty well exclusively gone to as a payment method with Covid.”