Tracking a dream
Young owner opens new shop

Rankin Inlet (Nov 17/99) - For Rankin Inlet's Neco Towtongie, a love for racing snowmobiles has led to a promising new business venture.

Towtongie held the grand opening of his Sigluaq Shop this past weekend.

The young businessman will be supplying snowmobile parts, new and used, for just about any model driven in Rankin, along with a complete line of snowmobile accessories.

"The dealer we're affiliated with in Winnipeg is very good and tells me we can get anything we need," says Towtongie.

"We're looking at being able to have most parts here in about a week.

"Even new machines, if people want to come in and see us, we'll do our best to get them a decent price on getting one up here."

Towtongie has hired two employees, Gary Sigurdson and Ronnie Tutanuak, to help him run things.

Towtongie says he bought out St. John Enterprises to launch his new venture, located next to Arctic Sewing.

"Ronnie has taken a Polaris warranty service course and we'll be doing all types of snowmobile maintenance," says Towtongie.

"We bought out the other company in June and immediately started with our renovations and getting in our inventory so we'd be ready as soon as possible."

Towtongie readily admits he has some tough competition in Rankin, but says there's still opportunity because of the tremendous popularity of the snowmobiles.

He says no company can have every part for every model, and, although Polaris will be his main brand, he also has Ski-Doo, Arctic Cat and Yamaha dealers lined up.

Like most people starting out on their own venture, Towtongie dreams of the day when all his hard work will make him the biggest dealer in town.

"This is something I really like to do and there's a lot of people here with snowmobiles.

"If we can prove ourselves to get things here quicker than our competitors, we should do all right.

"Hopefully, we'll show people in the community that, 'For all your snowmobile needs, check the Sigluaq.'"