By the time you’re reading this, Denise Redfern will be looking ahead to December. She’ll have gone to Hay Days in Minnesota, a long-running sledding event organized by the Sno-Barons Snowmobile Club of Blaine, Minnesota. The meet is considered a kickoff to the sledding season; it’s only a matter of time until snow coats the trails of Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba—Redfern’s favourite sledding destination.
“The scenery is so beautiful and the trails are great too,” said Redfern. “You get to meet people on the trails and at some of the warm-up shacks, and the majority of them are very friendly.”
With its groomed trail network and numerous warm-up shacks, Whiteshell’s popularity should come as no surprise. There are more than 200 kilometres of trails in the park, connecting places such as Seven Sisters, Falcon Lake and Rennie.
Redfern has been snowmobiling since her childhood, when she would travel to her uncle’s home in Anola, Manitoba, and sled with her relatives on a 1979 Ski-Doo Everest, and later a 1993 Ski-Doo Safari. Her current snowmobile is a 2007 Ski-Doo 600 HO SDI Blizzard, a sled she said gives her a great turning radius and excellent control—and shares its name with her Labrador puppy, Blizzard.
Redfern’s primary sledding buddy is her boyfriend, Ken Lick, also a lifelong sledder. The arctic temperatures and freezing winds don’t stop either of them from snowmobiling from dawn until dusk, sometimes travelling hundreds of kilometres in a day. From their home in Tyndall, Manitoba, Redfern and Lick sled to places like Birdshill Park, Pinewa and Lac du Bonnet.
Redfern said that she’s out on the trails at least once during the weekend, and often goes on night rides too. But if you’re in the area and looking to identify her by a flash of fuchsia, you might have to wait until she stops and takes off her gear.
“Because I don’t like pink, I buy the men’s jackets and pants,” she said. “Then I get somewhere and take off my helmet and people say, ‘Oh, that’s a chick!’”
