BY BRUCE CODY
People often ask, “How does a guy from western New York end up starting a snowmobile guiding business in French-speaking Quebec?”
It all begins with the love of snowmobiling, the amazing trails in Quebec and the Quebec snowmobile culture.
I spent 10 years riding all regions of Quebec, getting to know the trails, and building relationships with people everywhere I went. The lodge owners, restaurants, repair shops and snowmobile dealers all became a vital part of my life. At the same time, I learned to read people and see when other people riding in Quebec may need my expertise.
I determined that these people would be much happier on their trip if they knew what I did. Planning the perfect trips for people became my goal, and my business was born.
I’m now a certified off-road vehicle (ORV) guide in the province of Quebec. While I get to spend winters doing something I love, being a certified guide is not like riding with my buddies. I now have another level of responsibility to assess trails, riding conditions and my group abilities and then make critical decisions for the group’s safety .
Types of Trips
There are three basic types of guided trips: home-based, saddlebag and backcountry. I primarily do home-based and saddlebag tours.
I do not do backcountry trips. They are the most dangerous and physically demanding type. It involves a lot of digging out sleds throughout a day when going off trail. These trips are for the most experienced riders. A certified guide is only permitted to have three riders per guide on these rides.
Home-based rides typically stay at one place and do 50- to 150-mile day trips, depending on the group’s experience level. These are very popular for tourists coming to Quebec.
There are companies and lodges that provide this service. Many of these tourists have never been on or even seen a snowmobile before, so there’s always a learning curve and a greater potential for minor accidents and brake/throttle mix-ups. They generally ride at slower speeds with a guide in front of the group.
In my own business, I only guide experienced snowmobilers. Our home-based trips are great for couples and for people who may not want to ride every day. We always have Ladies Day midweek and provide a massage for the women. On numerous occasions, the ladies have said they’d rather go out and ride.
The second type of trip is the saddlebag trip. These are multi-day trips, riding a loop starting in one location and returning to that location after several days of riding to other lodges. The trick with saddlebag trips is learning what to pack for a week-long excursion and how to pack it. Snowmobiles offer limited luggage space, so riders need to use it wisely.
I tell people not to pack bulky clothes like jeans and sweatshirts or big shoes. I recommend thin nylon/polyester running pants and tops because they pack tightly. Water shoes that compress tightly or slippers also compress well. Really, it’s just a dinner outfit that you’ll wear for about two hours each night. You don’t need a change for every day — just don’t drip mustard on your shirt on day one. Use most of the space for clean underwear, socks and toiletries and not multiple dinner outfits.
Saddlebag trips have some challenges: the weather, the trail conditions, equipment failures and just overall fatigue towards the end of a week. An experienced guide knows how to handle these circumstances.
Weathering a Storm
Last season, I took a group to the Gaspé Peninsula, which has the most volatile weather patterns in Quebec. When we woke up to start our first day of our trip, it had snowed 16 inches overnight. I adjusted our route to stay on all the main trails to cut back on the mileage, knowing it could be a difficult one. Our second day included some trail breaking since I decided to take a secondary trail.
Then the forecast changed to two days of solid rain. I bought rain suits for the guys who wanted them; the ones who said no wished they had them. We had a one-day break in the weather and then a major blizzard hit. The blizzard closed the trails and highway for a 200-mile stretch. My decision at that point was to stay put.
We had motel rooms and a restaurant. No one else could get there so we were not going to lose our rooms. I had two choices: get a truck and trailer to transport us once the highway opened or wait for the trails to get groomed. I contacted a towing company that agreed to transport six sleds and riders, if needed, once the highway opened.
The struggle happens when members in the group want to ride the closed trails or just take the highway on snowmobiles. I know the trails and know, from experience, there will be 8- to 10-foot snow drifts with equally tall snowbanks at road crossings after the plows pass. There will also be zero visibility in the open fields.
Some folks think this will be fun and say, “Let’s go for it.” It is dangerous, and I know better. If something were to happen with me as the guide, I could be held responsible for allowing it.
The highway was closed for two days and the trails for three. The day the highway opened, two trucks with a trailer came to take us and our snowmobiles two hours back to our starting location.
Other weather factors include extreme cold or rain. No one wants to be out in either of those, so I adjust our route to get us to our next lodging as quickly as possible. Wind can cause zero visibility and huge drifts in open fields. When that happens, I adjust the route to keep us in the woods as much as possible for better visibility and limited snow drifts.
A Guide’s Life
Being a snowmobile guide requires not only having the skills and physical ability and endurance to ride thousands of miles through all of the winter conditions in Quebec, but also knowing the trails, monitoring conditions and making the proper decisions for the safety of the clients.
A guide also needs to possess the people skills to spend seven days a week, 16 hours a day with people you may have just met.
And no matter how much you train, prepare and plan, the No. 1 factor that can’t be controlled is the weather. It can be minus 40 degrees F or 40 degrees F, rain or blizzards. While my clients may still be sleeping, I am awake looking at reports for weather, trail conditions and grooming.
Few people get to spend six to eight weeks snowmobiling the fantastic trail system and seeing the amazing sites of a Quebec winter like I do, and I appreciate that. But being a guide has a lot of responsibilities that go along with the job that most people don’t realize.
This must be your dream job, right?
Well, on most days it is.
Bruce Cody owns and operates Snow Tour Quebec.