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By Nick Nielsen

Trail conditions

Summer wildfire damage affecting northern snowmobile trails

Jan 8, 2026 | 11:30 AM

Work continues on the damage caused by wildfires this past summer, but snowmobile enthusiasts continue to feel the effects in the north.

There are 65 snowmobiling trail associations in Saskatchewan, and 35 of them are located in the northern Boreal Forest. The Whiteswan Snow Hawks run just over 170 kilometres worth of trails northeast of White Gull Lake, located near Narrow Hills Provincial Park. About 150 kilometres of their trails were scorched by wildfire, and now only 30 to 40 per cent are usable.

Whiteswan Snow Hawks President Wesley Perehudoff said that the trails they manage north of Pinkney Lake, which is about 30 kilometres northeast of the Resort Village of Candle Lake, are all unusable and won’t see a groomer any time soon.

“No equipment, but we lost two shacks. It made such a mess of the trails. Every windstorm, the trees are falling down. So if we groom them, if we go out and clear them with chainsaws, well, the next day a windstorm comes through and we’ll start all over again.”

The Club has had to reroute some of the trails to keep them operational, but that isn’t an easy process. There’s a lot more to it than just cutting down a few trees to make a new path.

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“We’ve done our best to try to remove some trees and make some reroutes a little bit, but with Crown land, it’s a big process to do reroutes and to get permits to clear trails.”

Perehudoff said the goal is to be fully operational next season. They’ve already placed two new shacks on the trails and have started fundraising through a Wildfire Relief effort.

The Esker Bear Trails, which are centred around the Lower Fishing Lake area, were all burned to some degree, but it is expected they’ll all be open by the end of the week.

“Within the next few days, we’ll have pretty much all our trails open,” said president Jim Craik. ““Right now, we’re trying to get our shelters finished. We rebuilt three new ones, and now we’re just trying to get them finished off. They’re all usable, it’s just to get them all done.”

A fire break created around Candle Lake to protect the community has led to some minor trail changes according to the president of the Candle Lake Sno-Drifters, Carey Painchaud.

“There’s a couple of trails that are going to look different for sure, but not large parts…maybe a kilometer here and there that you’ll have to drive to the fire breaks. The trails are all still groomed. When they did the fire breaks, they were able to save our trails. So everything’s still in pretty good shape.”

Painchaud added that this year, the trails around Candle Lake have never seen so much snow. Some trails have already had their second pass with grooming equipment, so the trails that are open are in the best shape they’ve ever been.

Candle Lake Sno-Drifters are going to have their annual 250 Rally coming up on Saturday, March 7.

Trails around Emma Lake all appear to be closed according to the Saskatchewan Snowmobile Association’s interactive map which you can find here.

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com