By Mike Hillman, photos courtesy of Ely-Winton Historical Society
Ely’s Earliest Snowmobiles This article originally appeared in the 2007-8 edition of the Ely Winter Times. Mike Hillman’s historically-based stories about Ely and its people were a popular
and lively part of the Times, and they’ve been missed since his death in December 2014. So we’ll be including some (perhaps condensed) in future issues.
I will always remember the first time I saw a snow machine. It was at one of the Trout-A-Rama fishing contests when I was a boy. Every winter there would be two fishing contests. The first took place on Shagawa Lake as part of the annual Winter Carnival; the second happened later in the winter and was held on Burntside Lake. Fishing contests were great fun for the town. The winters back then were much longer and colder than they are now. The snow was deeper, and there were weeks on end when the temperature didn't make it above zero. Most of the country was beyond reach, streets in town grew narrow with snow,
and everything seemed to press in on us. That was why things like the Winter Carnival and Trout-A-Rama were so important to the mental health of the town. We needed a way to get people out of their houses in the winter or attacks of cabin fever, which happen to some degree every winter, would grow to epidemic proportions. And that also was why there was so much talk about a snow machine coming to that long ago Trout-A-Rama. It gave people the hope that maybe there was something to break winter's hold on the country, and dozens of skeptical people were there to witness this great event. That winter, rumors abounded in the
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