As Mike O’Reilly, longtime organizer and participant of the annual Old Sled Run, walked into Gavan’s Sunday right around noon, he had to dust off a layer of snow from his snowsuit. Contrary to the previous couple of years, there was plenty of snow and ice to go around.
“It’s been three years since we’ve been able to cross the river,” O’Reilly said. “The last two winters it was never safe to cross.”
The route traveled by the vintage sled enthusiasts starts in Constance Bay on the Ontario side with a breakfast at the town’s Legion. Then, participants cross the Ottawa River to Quyon where they park their sleds in front of Gavan’s, where they settle in for lunch.
“Part of my goal in organizing this is to fill Gavan’s,” O’Reilly said. “They’ll have the big side open and it all goes according to plan, it will be jammed.”
And it was packed Sunday at lunch. The room was full of helmets and people ordering food and drinks.
After lunch, participants headed back to Constance Bay to hear who won the awards. This year, the award for loudest pipes went to the Chris Armstrong family. The best vintage snowsuit category was won by Zoe Hatfield. The youngest rider was three-year-old Oakley Medland-Brown, while the oldest sled was Garry Trudeau’s 1968 SnoBug.
Cross-river camaraderie
O’Reilly said that the event is not only about prizes.
“It’s an opportunity to see our friends from the Pontiac,” O’Reilly said. “They’re people we see in the summer, it’s a chance for camaraderie.”
And camaraderie, O’Reilly said, is found on the ice.
“The old sleds tend to break down,” O’Reilly said. “There’s never a shortage of people on more modern sleds to tow them home or help out.”
O’Reilly said it was actually how he met his longtime friend Garry Trudeau.
“I met Garry when I broke down on the river a number of years ago and Garry picked me up, we went back to his shop in Quyon, made a repair and went to Gavan’s,” O’Reilly said.
“Back in the day, those machines would break down,” Trudeau added. “You had to be a half-decent mechanic to fix them to get off the trail or tow them home.”
O’Reilly said Trudeau, a lifelong Quyon resident, helps to hold down the fort on the Quyon side for the event.
“Snowmobiling was very popular in this area back in the 70s,” Trudeau said. “I grew up in Quyon all my life and in the 70s, everybody had a snowmobile.”
Trudeau brought out his 1968 SnoBug Sunday. He said the vintage snowmobiles are what snowmobiling is about.
“These were true snowmobilers,” Trudeau said. “They went out when the weather was bad. Now, snowmobiles are like luxury cars.”
Trudeau said that he enjoys getting to see the snowmobiles but that the community is the best part.
“What’s really nice about it is that it brings a lot of people together and you meet people from all over the place,” Trudeau said. “To see the machines that were there back in the day makes me excited.”
The event is also a fundraiser for the Constance Bay Legion, of which O’Reilly is a member.
“Many small legions are struggling,” O’Reilly said. “So, being able to bring in an event which people enjoy so much, which is so popular and benefits the ongoing operations of our branch is a tremendous opportunity.”
