It wasn’t quite the Iditarod, but we had our own version of long-distance winter recreation that was fun for a lot of people.
How many of you remember a snowmobile race that started in Regina and ended in Minot? It was called the Regina Minot International 250 that took place in the 1970s and early ‘80s and usually happened in the month of February.
There is currently some internet buzz to resurrect this race and return that excitement to the prairie. And if you look at some of the Internet threads, it seems everyone who makes a comment on there is willing to “run this race again.”
The Regina Minot International 250 took in a lot of amateur snowmobile enthusiasts from Detroit Lakes, Minn., all the way to the mountains of Colorado and even the Lake Tahoe area of California. Numerous people on the Saskatchewan prairie also took part.
But there was another element to this race that apparently wasn’t so well publicized. Many of the makers of snowmobiles such as Arctic Cat and Polaris, saw the race as an opportunity to test their latest and greatest equipment. The Regina to Minot route was a sort of proving ground.
Now if you think about the latest and greatest as recently as 1985, snow machines have changed a great deal since then and today’s sleds would make it easier and more fun to run the grueling race.
Anyone who may have been involved in the race knew all too well it wasn’t a 250-mile magic carpet ride. In some years there was very little snow and sometimes the riders had to run for short stretches on dry ground, or in water or mud if it was a mild time of year.
In one testimonial, a guy who participated said he ran all the way from Bowbells to Minot (68 miles) on dry ground and ruined the suspension of his snowmobile, but if he had the opportunity to do it again, he’d be right there in line to sign up.
That says there was a lot more to this race than picking up a cash prize when you crossed the finish line. It was endurance, the will to complete the mission, camaraderie and maybe a bit of embellishment on who had the better sled. It was obviously something bigger than the riders themselves.
And that’s a great segue into the other side of this coin. Any kind of long-distance race, whether it’s in a car, on a horse, on foot or on a snowmobile, there are pit stops along the way. And when you look at all the small towns along that route that would presumably be parallel to Saskatchewan Provincial Highway 39 in Saskatchewan and U.S. Highway 52 in the United States, there are a lot of local opportunities.
Yellow Grass, Weyburn, Estevan, North Portal/Portal, Lignite, Bowbells, Kenmare, Carpio and Ruthville are most of what would be the stopping points. Surely these communities would see a boost in an otherwise slow winter economy. Just think of the international public relations for Portal and North Portal alone.
This could happen again, and if it did, every small town newspaper and radio station would want to get in on the action. Restaurants would have to pre-plan timed meals, everybody’s got to gas up and take bathroom breaks. Something like this would benefit far more than just Regina and Minot.
At an average speed of 45 miles per hour, the race can be run in about 5 1/2 hours. Today’s snowmobiles are faster than that, but if you consider pit stops and maintenance, it slows the overall time considerably and that’s where the small towns come in.
It’s hard to say at this point who organized the race and took care of the logistics. Maybe it’s something the chambers of commerce in both Minot and Regina should consider. There might be a lot more interest than the general public thinks.
