Sign up for the paNOW newsletter

More snow needed for snowmobile festival

Jan 17, 2017 | 5:00 AM

A provincial snowmobile festival next month could face some challenges if more snow doesn’t fall before then.

The “Lakeland Skquatchin” Provincial Snowmobile Festival, hosted by the Saskatchewan Snowmobile Association and the Lakeland Tree Dodgers Snowmobile Club, is scheduled to take place next month at the Lakeland Sportsplex in Christopher Lake, but there’s a chance that there won’t be enough snow on the ground for participants to go for a ride.

Event organizer Carol Lueken said they definitely need more snow.

“We have some snow right now, but we need a lot more snow to make it a very good festival,” she said. “We can’t make snow, unfortunately, but we definitely will have some events planned right at the festival hall if there’s no snow and you can’t ride.”

Lueken said participants will still be able to ride if conditions don’t change, but the trails might not be at their best.

Roughly 60 people have registered for the event already, but Lueken said more than 300 attended when they hosted the event for the first time in 2006. She said they are expecting to see that same amount of participation this year, and added many of the participants are coming from across the province as well as from Alberta and Manitoba.

The weekend festival starts on Feb. 24 with an ice breaker social fish fry at 5 p.m.

–With files from Nigel Maxwell

 

Jeff Labine is paNOW’s health and education reporter. He can be reached at Jeff.Labine@jpbg.ca or tweet him @labinereporter.