Winter activities ramping up in the northwest

Most of Northwestern Ontario has already experienced a taste of winter weather this November.

That's made some people involved in outdoor activities extra excited.

Dave Suttie is one of those people.

He is the general manager of the Kamview Nordic ski area in Thunder Bay, and said the season is well ahead of schedule

"Things are looking really choice here," said Suttie. "We were able to get some skiing going on the 17th of November which is is really early for us, and what we do have open is in pretty good shape."

Suttie said they had been spending a good deal of time prepping the ski area before the snow came. He said that included making sure the grass is short, and doing a bit of reclamation on the trails.

"We were cutting trees back, taking down danger trees, and making sure equipment is tuned up so that it works," he said.

Suttie said with the early snow and cold, the transition to skiing came pretty quickly and that there were a lot of people enjoying the trails.

However, he said he is concerned a warming trend forecast for the end of November could make the early season skiing short lived.

He said even though Kamview has some snow-making equipment, they need wintery temperatures to make that snow happen.

On Wednesday, the Kamview Nordic Centre posted they would be closing the trails from Nov. 24 to 27 due to expected warm weather.

"It's not quite the same technology they would have at the (downhill) ski areas," he said. "So I do need pretty consistent temperatures of highs of -10 and lower than that to make any decent amount of snow."

Another person happy about the early arrival of winter in the northwest is Adrian Tessier.

Tessier is the groomer/coordinator for the Thunder Bay Adventure Trails snowmobile club.

The group is part of the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs and manages a large network of groomed trails across the northwest.

Tessier said they had been prepping the trails before the snow came, using all-terrain vehicles to access areas where trees had blown down or where bush needed to be trimmed back.

He said the early snow has trail riders excited, but there is still a ways to go before any of them can be opened.

Tessier said the trails go over a number of swamps, and they must be frozen before any trail can be groomed.

"Now we gotta get out with snowmobiles and pack those swamps down," he said. "The snow is an insulator in some ways, and it's like putting a big blanket of insulation over the swamps. Those swamps create a little bit of their own heat, so you've got to combat that as well."

Tessier said the club is coming off of a winter that was nearly perfect for trail riders.

He said that it was also one of the longest seasons due to several late blizzards in the spring of 2022.

"We even had trails not able to open because there was too much snow," he said. "But once they got groomed up, we had a huge base and it ended up being one of our latest-closing seasons ever."

Tessier said trails are typically open in mid-January, depending on snow depth, the amount of frozen swamps and overall cold. 

He said he is still feeling good about a reasonably-early start to the riding season in 2023.

Corey Hayward is also watching the weather this month and hoping for more cold.

Hayward is owner and operator of Bear Trak outfitters, on the shore of Lake Superior's Black Bay.

He said he can see ice on the bay and is hopeful that it will stick around.

Yet, Hayward knows that a warming trend and some wind can turn things back pretty quickly.

He said it's too soon to tell if he and his crew will be able to start moving shacks onto the ice next month.

"We've had some years when we were on December 15th or so, and then some years you get out well into mid-January," he said. "So it's really when it feels safe out there. Which we are very careful about."

Hayward said they have been prepping the ice shacks for the 2022/23 season by painting them, checking the stove pipes and lining them up near the lake in preparation of the ice getting thick enough to pull them out.

Hayward said Lake Superior is a big, unforgiving body of water so he waits until there is plenty of ice to start moving shacks.

"The fishing grounds are around five kilometres offshore," he said. "So I want to see 10 to 12 inches of ice before we start heading out there. You see recommendations that say four to to six inches is OK, but when we're out on Lake Superior and we're four kilometres offshore and the ice moves and split, we've got to be safe."

Hayward said the winter of 2021/22 was great for many winter activities, but it was a challenging one for them.

He said repeated blizzards and white-out conditions made it very tricky to transport guests to the shacks.

He said even having a clearly marked trail didn't always solve the problem.

"We have our stick trail, and it's marked every 75 yards with a stick, and even that wasn't enough when the snow storms were bad," he said. "It was a real benefit having the the GPS on the handlebar, it made us feel a little safer."

The ice may take a little longer than Hayward hoped to tow shacks on.

Environment Canada is calling for a high of 4 C in the Thunder Bay area on Nov. 25, and a high of 7 C for Nov. 26.