Lack of groomed trails expected to hurt economy

If the Junction Trail Blazers can't groom their snowmobile trails this winter, there's going to be some negative fallout.

That's the prediction from businesses and organizations around the region.

The Trail Blazers' executive announced it wouldn't be able to continue grooming the hundreds of kilometres of trails in its jurisdiction late last week.

The club's website said the organization is going to be officially dissolved. However, Trail Blazers president Wilf Curlew said the club hasn't disappeared.

"We haven't folded yet," Curlew said. "We've just realized that we can't groom our trails this winter unless we get unless we get some more financial support and more volunteers. I've got a meeting with the snowmobile federation this week to try and come up with a solution. But as it stands now, we just don't have the bodies to keep the groomers running."

Curlew said there are trails that need to have brush cleared from them and signs that need to be put up along with culverts to be installed before the season even gets underway.

At the club's annual general meeting last week, only eight people bothered to show up. Curlew said the obvious lack of support for the trail-grooming effort is disheartening.

The loss of the trail-grooming services would be a blow to many local businesses. Even the Town of Deer Lake, which is vying for official designation as the snowmobiling hub of the province, has a vested interest in seeing the trails in operation.

Deer Lake Mayor Barbara Ball said the town is keeping a close eye on the situation.

"I spoke with Coun. Larry Hall last week about the issue of the Trail Blazers," Ball said.
"He's in charge of our economic development committee that has developed the snowmobile hub plan, and he assured me that the plan is still moving ahead into the implementation phase.

"We're hopeful that the Trail Blazers will be able to work through their challenges because we rely on that club to keep the trail network groomed. It appears that the problem is a lack of volunteers.

"Hopefully, the call to get more people volunteering will be heeded and honestly, snowmobiling is such a popular activity here that it's hard to believe there aren't enough people willing to volunteer their time to keep it running."

Meanwhile, more and more businesses in the region are tailoring their operations to suit the needs of the four-season tourism product being marketed for the region.

Funland Resort in Cormack is one of those operations that relies on snowmobile business in the winter. Owner-operator Jim Eddy said he's worried about the effect the news could have on local businesses like his.

"What I'm concerned about is people from out of town who are planning to come into the area to snowmobile this winter," Eddy said. "What if you're sitting in St. John's planning a trip out to the Deer Lake area when you hear the trails aren't being groomed.

"Would you go somewhere else if you did?"