Jason Unrau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 28/04) - To the uninitiated, the dozen or so snowmobiles assembled on the Mackenzie River just east of the boat launch appeared doomed last week.

Gathered in an orderly fashion on the ice and separated from the shore by an ever-widening gap of water, several people in town stopped by the Drum office to speak of sleds that were destined for the bottom of the river.

"This is normal and people new to the place don't understand," said James Day, while checking on his own snowmobile at the scene of all of the hullabaloo Friday afternoon.

"A lot of people are getting ready to go out on the land and this is where some will start."

Day said sledding over water isn't such a big deal. Riders get up enough speed to hydroplane across a similar watery stretch on the other side, he said.

Hans Lennie, proprietor of Westwind Recreation and Day's business partner, explains the logic of leaving snowmobiles on the melting river. "Coming off the ice, you can go a long way, but coming on you don't get as good of a run at it."

Despite preparation and much experience snowmobiling in these conditions, every year a couple of sleds end up at the bottom of the river.

"We get requests to go after a couple every year," said Lennie of Westwind's recovery operations.

Though no machines, to Lennie's recollection, have been lost forever, he says that sinking a sled can mean more than just water damage.

"We try to hook them and drag them out with other sleds," he said. "If you hook a ski loop then that's great, but often it's the seat or windshield and they can come right off."

As for the window of opportunity to ride a sled into the bush before river break-up, Lennie estimated Friday that there were another five days to go at Inuvik's river stretch.

"When the Peel (River) moves, a few days after it's usually Aklavik and we're a couple of days after that," he said.

Once at camp, Lennie says the snowmobiles stay there until next winter. If people need to come back to town it's by boat.