Communities and businesses in Northern Ontario’s Algoma Country can join touring snowmobilers in breathing a sigh of relief. The owners of Halfway Haven have announced their re-opening, at least for the coming winter.
This good news averts the looming closure or disruption of almost 1,000 kilometres of the last remaining Algoma Country trail link between Sault Ste Marie and Hearst. It’s a link well-known to American snowmobilers as their gateway to the rest of Northeastern Ontario, and the Halfway Haven re-opening coincides with the re-opening of the international border, just in time to welcome American snowmobilers back to Ontario for the coming winter.
Halfway Haven is located north of Sault Ste. Marie, on a remote stretch of Trans Ontario Provincial (TOP) Trail D between Searchmont and Wawa. The fuel, food and lodgings available at Halfway Haven make it possible for groomers coming from Searchmont, Wawa and Chapleau (on TOP C101D) to do their long runs through this vast territory. Stopping at this iconic midway point also provides touring riders with the fuel essential to complete this breathtaking section of trail.
The closure of Halfway Haven, announced on their Facebook page last April 30th, would have resulted in trail closures this winter due to no gas availability in the area. It would also have cut off snowmobile access to many communities north of Halfway Haven.
Readers of Supertrax Magazine and viewers of SnowTrax TV are familiar of this amazing trail between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst from previous coverage. If you need a reminder, check out their tour article and television episodes. They provide many good reasons why this remains a favourite Northern Ontario ride. So now that Halfway Haven is open, why not plan your own Algoma Country tour for this winter?
But the announced re-opening is only a stop-gap measure for the coming winter. It postpones a potential future closing of Halfway Haven by only a year. Hopefully, that will buy enough time for area stakeholders to champion a more permanent solution that takes the season to season guesswork out of Halfway’s shaky existence as the only viable service operation on this trail.
To help this happen and keep trails open, Supertrax Media is covering the story and has produced the Halfway Haven video below to emphasize its importance to snowmobiling in Northern Ontario. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Halfway Haven survives beyond this winter and is with us for many more years to come!
