You’d think the history of snowmobiles would be pretty much an open and shut cold case, right? Nope. The original machines were not associated with recreation. The first snow machine was built to move logs from the woods to the landing where trucks picked them up for milling.
Alvin Lombard’s 20-ton Steam Log Roller was built in Waterville, Maine, in 1908. That’s only five years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight. Apparently, flying was easier to figure out than how to skim logs over snow.
Actually, the log hauler didn’t skim over the snow as much as swim through it. Resembling a saddle-tank steam locomotive, these log haulers had skis steered from a small platform in front of the boiler and were driven by a set of chain-driven tracks similar to a bulldozer’s. The 10- to 30-ton vehicle could reach a whopping top speed of about 4.5 miles per hour. Not much chance of wind chill frostbite, but it got the job done.
In 1913, twin creations were invented: one by Virgil White in Ossipee, New Hampshire, and virtually the same contraption was built at the same time in Waterville, Maine. The design? – A Model T Ford, equipped with tracks and ski conversions!!!
According to the Model T Ford Snowmobile Club, country doctors and rural mail carriers were the largest users of this type of vehicle. Other customers of the manufactured Snowmobile included public utility companies, lumber companies, traveling salesmen, fire departments, school bus and taxi drivers, undertakers, grocers, milkmen, truckers, and cranberry growers. If you just had to get out regardless of the snow, this was the conveyance for you.
It’s interesting to note that Virgil White was the first to invent the phrase “snowmobile.”
White put it on the market during the winter of 1922, selling the attachments exclusively through Ford dealers. The Snowmobile attachment consisted of the complete package necessary to convert a Ford into a reliable snow machine. Skis made of metal and wood, and rear-mounted tracks, were the most noticeable accoutrements.
The “Ford on Snowshoes” was offered in three different gauges, each designed to meet specific requirements. For travel in areas where autos were common, the 56-inch gauge was recommended. If your travel included narrower horse tracks, the 44-inch gauge fit in the tracks of horse-drawn bobsleds. A thirty-eight-inch gauge was offered where narrower sleigh tracks were standard, such as in parts of Canada.
But what about the recreational versions more common these days? In 1909, O.C. Johnson constructed a track-designed machine that didn’t catch on well due to performance problems, but he was out there first.
In 1922, a 15-year old teenager named J. Armand Bombardier created a sleigh that was wind-driven. This sleigh used a rear-mounted Model T engine driving an airplane propeller. Later, he invented a tracked vehicle.
The first U.S. patent for a single rubber track vehicle was filed in 1927 by Carl Eliason of Wisconsin. Eliason had built his first “motorized toboggan,” as he called it, in 1924. It was a wooden toboggan fitted with two skis, steered with a rope, and powered by a small Johnson outboard motor. Now, don’t go thinking the outboard’s propeller drove the belt. That would be as silly as a Model T on skis.
Bombardier was granted a Canadian patent in 1960 and a U.S. patent in 1962 for his endless track, enclosed vehicle (A.k.a snowmobile), used for transporting people.
If improvements have been made to the original 4.5 mph snowmobiles, what is the world record for speed? The 1000+HP Turbo Snowmobiles
can fly down a 500-foot snow track at 160 mph in three seconds, and go from 0 to 60 mph in under one second!!! Who wants to go that fast for only 500 feet? Apparently, lots of people.
Talk about frostbite – good thing there’s no water involved… or is there? Not only is there snowmobile racing on water, but the current world record is 85 mph! I suppose that’s a little too fast for fishing, but stopping would be out of the question.
According to the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association: 1), there are four major manufacturers that build snowmobiles. They are: Arctic Cat, BRP, Polaris, and Yamaha Motor Corporation. 2) In 2025, there were 92,387 snowmobiles sold worldwide. 3) There are 1.3 million registered snowmobiles in the US and over 559,300 registered snowmobiles in Canada.
So, there you have it – a winter conveyance, originally invented as a workhorse, that turned into a snow-skimming vehicle for people who just had to drive around in the snow, to a big-time big-money industry. Don’t you wish you had bought some stock way back then?
Written by Tony Lolli.