‘It’s all for the kids’: New Brunswick snowmobile challenge raises over $145,000 for summer camps

Participants celebrating after the completion of the 1000 Mile Challenge. (Submitted: Rudi Fowler)

A New Brunswick-based international snowmobile challenge looks to raise money for local summer camps.

From Feb. 16 to Feb. 20, the sixth-annual 1000 Mile Challenge saw teams from across the country and the eastern United States travel across the province. 

The event also has a satellite route in Michigan.  

“It's not meant to be competitive at all. It's just a bunch of guys going out and snowmobiling for 1000 miles,” said Rudi Fowler, the event co-founder. “At the end of the day, the goal is to raise money to send kids to camp through snowmobiling.”

This year, they had 48 riders split into nearly 20 teams, who raised $145,860. The snowmobilers don’t have to follow the recommended route, as long as they try to travel 1000 miles. 

Participants look for sponsors who donate to their team. Over $705,000 has been raised since the event started in 2021.

Fowler first came up with the idea after he and two friends decided to see if they could cover 1000 miles in under 24 hours. They started posting the footage of it on social media and people started to follow their challenge.

“There was no fundraiser behind it, we went out, rode and people got hooked into it,” he said. “We had a lot of fans on the street and they threw money at it. So we decided we needed to put money that was given … towards some type of charity.”

Riders taking a break along the trail during the challenge. (Submitted: Rudi Fowler)

Starting at the Riverside Resort in Mactaquac, the recommended New Brunswick route follows trails that loop across the province. It heads north towards Campbellton, then south-west to McAdam, before heading back east toward Fredericton.

Some teams still try to complete the challenge in under 24 hours, but Fowler said they don’t encourage it for safety reasons. The event can’t be called a race as well, due to the risk factors of using public trails.

Riders from New England and other Maritime provinces travel to New Brunswick to join the locals to take part in the challenge. 

Before the Michigan route was added this year, snowmobilers from the Midwestern U.S. used to travel to New Brunswick to take part in the challenge. After multiple teams from the region signed up, they decided to have their own route in the U.S.

“We send the money back to camps from where the teams came from,” he said. “This year, we had seven teams in Michigan and the rest were here. We try to get the money to stay where the sponsors came from.”

Despite all the riders involved, Fowler said that the event is not meant to be a competition.  

“There's no real winner of the challenge, the kids are the winners,” he said. “There's guys that get their 1000 miles completed and there's some that didn’t. At the end of the day, it's all for the kids.”