Like many of you (the awesome ones), I’m very happy we have plenty of snow this year. I hope we get more. We need it. But not just for our own frosty fun. We need it for an often overlooked, yet crucial Wisconsin subculture: the snowmobilers.

Without snow, snowmobilers are simply mobilers. What could be sadder? Without frosty trails for the snowmobilers to ride, things just aren’t the same. For anybody. After all, what’s winter in Wisconsin without the constant, slightly nasal and totally insane wail of a snowmobile? All day and all night long, a relentless waaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaah as countless motorized snow sleds rip through the serene winter landscape. Magical.

Eventually, I was old enough to drive the snowmobiles by myself, and that’s when I became a Snowmobile Super Jump Master. And believe you me, it’s not easy being a Super Jump Master. Sure, it takes a lot of practice, but mostly it takes a lot of raw, adrenaline-fueled natural talent and nerves of steel. Magic titanium steel.

Packs of snowmobilers are often the life blood of taverns and lodges throughout the Northwoods, giving their bottom lines a big ol’ shot in the bottom, but they mean more than that. It’s the attitude. It’s the mystique. It’s the fantastic adult snowsuits. It’s all a part of life in Wisconsin.

I used to love my dad’s old snowmobiles. They were a fixture of my youth. My family always had a cabin in the northwestern part of the state, so we always had access to snowy trails and frozen lakes. My dad loved snowmobiling, and even before I could drive one myself, I loved it too.

I liked the machines themselves. It didn’t even need to be winter. In the summertime, I’d sneak into the back of our garage and plop down onto the dusty vinyl seat of Dad’s old ’71 Ski Doo Olympic. Sometimes I’d make vroom sounds and pretend I was zipping around a woodland trail, dodging rocks and trees. Which is to say I’d make vroom sounds and pretend I was zipping around the Forest Moon of Endor, dodging Ewoks and Stormtroopers.

My favorite part of the old Ski Doo was playing with the headlight. You yanked on a little handle and the headlight popped up out of the hood. How cool was that? 

What’s that, Princess Leia? You say it’s getting too dark out here, and you can’t see all the Ewoks and Stormtroopers? Bam-ka-zam! Secret headlight to the rescue, m’lady.

Come winter, I’d spend a lot of time on that old snowmobile, sitting in front of my dad as he steered us through the woods up north. I logged a lot of time with my grandpa, too, roaring down the trails and across the lakes on his ’74 Polaris TX*. 

Eventually, I was old enough to drive the snowmobiles by myself, and that’s when I became a Snowmobile Super Jump Master. And believe you me, it’s not easy being a Super Jump Master. Sure, it takes a lot of practice, but mostly it takes a lot of raw, adrenaline-fueled natural talent and nerves of steel. Magic titanium steel.

To a young Mike Paulus, trails did not have “bumps.” They had Super Jump Opportunities. See, you gotta hit an SJO at exactly the right angle, and you gotta gun the engine at exactly the right time. Because in the hands of a master, a snowmobile grows wings.

I’d hit those jumps, go flying through the crystalline winter air, and only then did I know what freedom really was. Sometimes – and this is only for the truly advanced – I’d stand up just a little and jump up at just the right time. Then you could do flamboyant kicks and twists in midair, like a hotrod snow hawk, shattering the laws of physics.

At least, that’s what it felt like. In reality, when I drove over a big hump in the trail, the snowmobile (and I) would rise about 12 inches, but never actually leave the ground. 

Our old snowmobiles are long gone, and I haven’t hit the trails in years. But I’ll always have those memories – those super loud, super cold memories, smelling like engine exhaust and dusty garages. I’ll always remember my dad and grandpa. And I’ll always remember soaring through the air like a wintertime daredevil. 

Whether it really happened or not.

* By the way, lest you think I’m some kind of wintery macho man, I had no idea what the models and makes of these snowmobiles were until I looked them up. To me, they were “the yellow one” and “Grandpa’s.”