"I tell groups--we, the clubs, are the fifth snowmobile manufacturer," says Don Lumley.

Lumley, of Sudbury, Ontario, is past president of the Canadian Council of Snowmobile Associations, and serves on ISMA's Safety Certification Committee. He has been chair of the International Snowmobile Council and president of the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs. He knows snowmobiles and trails.

"We are the infrastructure manufacturer," Lumley says of the clubs and associations scattered like snowflakes across North America. "We're volunteers, and yet we develop a product--an infrastructure of trails that snowmobiles are capable of using."

Snowmobile clubs do even more than that. They groom trails--on their own--by buying grooming machines or by contracting with professional groomers. They also work to keep trails safe, maintaining them through all seasons. They work to create safer snowmobilers, too.

Mike Perkovich of Chisholm, Minn., is trail administrator of the Pathfinders Snowmobile Club and a state-certified snowmobile safety instructor. "I try to foster safer snowmobiling, mostly common sense and rules of the road," he says.

Perkovich has been snowmobiling for more than 15 years, putting 2,000 to 3,000 miles per year on his sled. He's been teaching safety classes through the Minnesota DNR for 9 years, in addition to coordinating trail work.

Ione Tamasetti also boosts snowmobiling and its safe enjoyment. She heads the Chisholm Chamber of Commerce and is secretary of the Pathfinders Snowmobile Club. That club donated four emergency transport sleds to area first aid agencies. The sleds were equipped with back boards, weather protection and other medical gear to help bring injured snowmobilers and other winter recreationists out of the wooded trail lands.

Helping others, creating safe riding areas, training safe riders and preparing for any problems . . . these are all activities of the modern snowmobile club, whose members pursue their own special winter fun at the same time.

Some clubs have built their own clubhouses. Others have created annual fund-raising events that channel money to charitable groups while providing pleasant social events for their members.

Clubs also keep their collective eye on the snowmobile trail . . . the pathway to winter fun.

First came individual trails, many of them now 30 years old. Gradually, individual trails became linked or "integrated." Some are even international, bridging the border between Canada and the United States.

With a group of eight snowmobilers, Lumley left his home in Sudbury, Ontario, 300 miles east of Sault Ste. Marie. They traveled north, then west, around the western end of Lake Superior and through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and back to Ontario--2,300 miles in 10 days, all on snowmobiles, all on groomed trails.

All thanks to snowmobile clubs and snowmobilers.