5 WINTER 2026 VOL. 07 / ISSUE 01 SNOWGOER. COM

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From New Brunswick To Thief River Falls, Minnesota

By John T. Prusak; Submitted Photos

“ We were as poor as church mice when I was a young boy, but dad always found a way to have a snowmobile in the garage or out back,” Lorne Steeves recalled.“ For years as a kid, I always dreamt of snowmobiling to Thief River Falls – wherever that was! I had no idea where that was. My dad always said,‘ Oh you’ re crazy, that’ s a pipe dream. Nobody is ever going to do that, it’ s impossible.’ That went on for years.”

Originally published in the January 2021 issue of Snow Goer

Thief River Falls, of course, is a city in Minnesota where those Arctic Cat snowmobiles that filled the Steeves family’ s winters with fun and adventure were built. It was truly a half-continent away, very far from a boy growing up within miles of the Atlantic Ocean in Canada’ s Maritime Provinces.

“ Well, my dad turned 80 last year in May, and he has had some health problems,” said Lorne, then 55.“ I knew I wanted to do it with my dad, and he was getting older – if I had any hope, it had to be now.

“ So I said to him,‘ Dad I’ m planning the trip, and I’ m going to call it Bucket List Tour 2020, and I’ m going to snowmobile from here to Thief River Falls, Minnesota, to the world headquarters of Arctic Cat snowmobiles.’ He looked at me over his glasses and said,‘ There’ s no way in hell you’ re ever going to pull that off!’ And I said,‘ Well, OK. Would you like to come with?’ and he said,‘ You know I’ d go with you if I could.’”

The dream became a reality when the Steeves father-son combination, plus father-and-son Trueman and Trevor Copp( then ages 74 and 48, respectively), crossed New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and most of Minnesota in February of 2020 – traveling almost 2,800 miles on a one-way mission to prove it could be done. They battled sub-arctic temperatures, deep snow and a couple of mishaps along the way, but ultimately their adventure was actually smoother than even they thought it would be. They pulled up to the Arctic Cat headquarters to a hero’ s welcome 15 days after they left their home.

After his proclamation, Lorne began months of planning – collecting maps, plotting routes, trying to make connections along the path and contacting Arctic Cat’ s marketing department. He got mixed results.

“ My dad was one of the forefathers of snowmobiling in our part of the country, and as soon as I dropped his name it was pretty easy to get help in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, just because of the relationships he had developed over the years,” Lorne said.“ I got a lot of‘ This is where you should go, Lorne,’ and‘ This is an area you should avoid,’ and it matched up with maps I had already generated.”

South of the border, though, was a different story.“ In the United States, it was like pulling teeth” getting anybody to respond, he said.“ This nice lady finally called me from some chamber of commerce in Minnesota somewhere. She said that she would send me trail maps of her area, and she would solicit her peers along my route to do the same thing.”

Within two weeks trail maps started filling his mailbox, though a lot of work lay ahead to make the maps match up in similar scales. After spending more than $ 1,000 in printing costs reproducing the documents, Lorne said, he finalized a complete map to show off on Christmas morning.

“ It was 37 feet long, and I unrolled it in my dad’ s living room and down the hallway to show him what it was,” Lorne said.“ He couldn’ t believe it.”

While Lorne was plotting the course and handling other logistics, Bob Steeves had personal prep work to do. He had a hip and a knee replaced months before the adventure, and then