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Snow Trac Registry

alaska120

alaska120

Mayor McCheese
I haven't noticed if building a Snow Trac registry has ever been successfull. If not, I am willing to assemble a spreadsheet with that information. The idea would be to try to document every known unit whether operational or not, still in existence or not.
Interested???
 
Whoa, whoa. Don't everyone jump in at once now.
OK, let's try this.
I am assembling a list of Snow Trac's by serial number that are in known existence. If you wish to have your unit included, please PM me the serial number, model, present location and condition (i.e. running, restoring, parts, destroyed).
Thanks again!:glare:
 
I kept a "Little Black Book" of my exploits locating Snow Trac's, parts, owners...that sort of thing. I always identified the machines by their serial number. Warren has it. Might be a good place to start. I owned: 180, 182, 196, 308, 368, 921,922, and I'll have to look up the others. But I remember 170, 171, &173 are at the guy's place in Whitehorse, and I saw #58 change hands twice in Anchorage. #2311, a groomer was the last machine sold by Twin Pines in Milinicket maine. One of my coworkers up here has 2 and another has one. Cris fox, a member of the Forum had one of the ones I had, a snow master that I can't remember the #, Cold Bay I should have at home, along with Olson's which I believe belongs to a member of the forum. Ill be hard pressed to fing the number of my Alyeska ambulance, but it was last in Redding Cal. there's the carcuses of one in Nuicsut, and at Livengood, a burnt up one near by the post office in Kotzebue, Paul traded his in for a Piston Bully at Yodelin and there is another one ther that I never took the serial number off. An industrial arts teacher has one in NH that he used to groom and had the kids at the school rebuild every year, theres 3 in Healy Ak, several in Nenana Ak, The guy in Index Wa just sold his and I don't know where it went. Ron Hoffman, a member of the froum has one in Yakima that is the sistr rig to my #368. Brad ? used to call me about his in central Wa, has a bed and breakfast, that's 31, it would make a good start? Talk to Warren. It's all there.
 
In another direction for the search for snow trac's: Sales Records indicate that 550 were shipped to Alaska. More than that was purchased by the Canadian National Railway, which the phone company in Canada was a subsidary of. They were actually the single largest purchaser of Snow Trac, Snow Master, and Trac Master. Whitehorse alone has 200 machines. Probably the second largest fleet worked out of the Canadian Phone Company offices in Kamloops BC, and the 3rd largest fleet out of Prince George. The head engineer for White Horse was Rory Corneil, Now retired and living in Vancouver BC, Harry Dewient was the Head Engineer at Prince George. I'll always regret not getting the picture of the 200 machines at Whitehorse, as it would certainly have been the largest assemblage of Snow Trac's in the world, almost 1/10 of the total production. THAT picture would be Priceless!
 
I have one of the original Canadian Phone Company Track Masters. I will get you the serial number when I get home. A Registry would be perfect! Couch Loafer has several now!
 
Maybe as follows: According to Bill Bolunis Jr, son of the Snow Trac delership in Anchorage, for all of alaska, the #4 rig was still being used by a cannery to drag fish nets up a ramp, was still operational, and stank like fish. Had all kinds of fish hooks in the track. These 4 introductory units, shipped to the US military for testing were Unique in that instead of aluminum cabs, alot of the sheetmetal on the cabs was Sheet Brass! A guy in North Pole has one, not in too bad of shape. The information I have for #4, was from 1994, not current. But I believe the one in North Pole recently changed hands. Your's is likely the lowest OPERATING unit, because the one from North Pole was heavily used for Hunting, and that usually leads to their demise. The last time I saw a "Brass-Cab" was in 2000, and it was marginally operational. >
Snow Trac's fit thru the cargo door of a DC6. A mine operator in the NOattack preserve, about 100 miles from Red Dog Mine, and equal distant from Kotzebue, liked them to use at his mine, only accessable by aircraft, and operated seasonally. I believe he has 6 or 7, possibly one is operational. these machines are inherently doomed by 1) being used for mining service, and 2) their remote location. What the miner did was rob parts of all the other machines to keep one machine alive. Seeing them might make a grown man cry. The one at the mine at Liven good was "Toast". They were not really designed for mining. Just to get the numbers off these machines would be a monumental task. Fly to alaska, Fly from there to Kotzebue, find the old miner at his house there ( heavy drinker, always sleeps till noon!) make arraingements with a bush pilot to fly out to the mine...... Kinda get the 'gist' of it? It's just short of a full blown Expedition! One could get some interesting pictures though. I already did the hard work for you, flew to Kotzebue, located the old Miner.... all you have to do is find the Miner and hire a bush pilot! good luck!
 
Oh Yes, I forgot to mention: this place is about 100 miles North of the Arctic Circle, you are probably limited to a 6 week window that you can access this area, and prepare to be eaten alive by mosquitoes!
Kotz.jpg
 
Kotzebue from the air. Only accessable by boat a few months of the year, otherwise it's dog sled! I saw more dog teams here than anywhere else on earth!
kotzebue1.jpg
But You Will find remenants of Snow Trac's here! and possibly some other early snow machines..
 
Any chance someone with the ability to get this up and runnning will? I would love to start a "Family Tree" shall we say of different owners of the different numbered Snow Tracs before it is lost forever but I dont have the computer knowledge. Think of all the ones that have slipped through Ebay for example with no trace left behind......

alaska120 said:
I haven't noticed if building a Snow Trac registry has ever been successfull. If not, I am willing to assemble a spreadsheet with that information. The idea would be to try to document every known unit whether operational or not, still in existence or not.
Interested???
Click to expand...
 
I am building a spread sheet in Excel but my summer is taking a toll on me. Lots of work at work and my other half has me putting an addition on the house so things have been busy. I most likely won't get back to it until freeze-up.
 
KevoH said:
It would be neat to see snow-trac.com create a registry like the Kristi registry on his sight.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that website doesn't seem to be updated very frequently.

Maybe it is time for us to consider a Snow Trac registry here? Alaska120, have you made any progress on your spreadsheet? If so we can create a new thread and "sticky" it so it stays up on the top like the Thiokol registry thread.
 
Nuiqsut Alaska, pronounced :NEW-ICK-Sit, is one of the towns nearest the Prudhoe Bay Oilfields. The town was moved some years ago. I spent some time there at a camp that ran out of water by 8PM, and quit serving food by 7PM so you had to get there early after putting in your 12 to 16 Hour day out on the Ice Pack. For 2 seasons there was an Ice road from Nuicsut that connected to our road system. But after one of the oil workers got the chiefs daughter pregnant we were not allowed in the village. The 300 resident natives are said to be worth about 60 Million $ each!
While we were building Alpine, one of the most productive oil sites in the Prudhoe bay complex, I had the oppertunity to tour the town and located one ST4, a runner. The locals told me there were the remains of several other snow cats in the local dump but I was prohibited from going there because of BEARS! From the description it sounded like there was a Bombardier B12 or R 12 there. Good luck getting the serial numbers of these machines. You can fly there, or if your up for a 100+ mile dog sled run,....
The woman that ran the local post office didn't like white folks and I always had to send my one native alaskan to the Post Office.
nuiqsut.jpg

NU2.png

Nuiqsut%20houses.jpg
During my stay in Nuiqsut in 1999-2000, the locals had no running water, no sewage system. ARCO, (Now Phillips Conoco) ran a gas line from Kuparuk and an electric line. A few years later they installed a system of underground heated tunnels called a "Utilador System" to carry the water and sewer. Prior to that they just left these little frozen pails on the lawns!
The native that had the one operating Snow Trac said it wasn't for sale, and that he paid 55$ for it!
 
them folks up on the north slope are a different breed kind of like the ataobaskens around ft yukon the tond take too kindly to out siders.
 
I've got a pretty decent list begun. It would be nicer to have it somehow interactive so everyone could add/modify it. Several hundred eyes can make it much more acccurate.
I keep my eye open for new ones that crop up. I live by the Tanana and have a brother with Crowley so he watches for me on the Yukon River villages. The Valley seems to be a good place as well and, why I don't know, Delta/Tok/Copper area.
 
for any one interested i found #760 on a old gold mine on iron creek i think i will try to buy it has some good parts on it still
 
Normally I just lurk around here and check this out since i dont have a rig yet. I have a buddy who has family in Nuiqsut and I asked him about the tracks up there. He did verify that they are still at the dump. he is calling a buddy of his to see if he will go and get the numbers off these rigs at the dump to add to the list. He also said that there were more rigs but they were crushed and buried.
 
UPDATE: IN 2000 OR 2001 the village did a clean up. to make room for new stuff they crush everything they could with a dozer and buried it. The is a small chance that they ended up in the back of the dump with the heavy equipment that was to big to crush.
 
I have a ST-4 #1692. Out of Wasilla Alaska. It is operational and I use it for Hunting and Skidding logs in the winter. Great Machine. Thinking of needing to put some new drive sprockets on it anybody have some for sale.
 
In North pole Alaska, a shop is casting new ones....You should turn around them once a year to get the most life out of them. This way they wear the spocket teeth from both sides.

Best regards, Kirk
 
the fairbanks sprokets are cast out of bronze instead of brass so they will wear betteri found the magic size is when the teeth wear to about 1/4 inch they start to break off
 
300 H and H said:
In North pole Alaska, a shop is casting new ones....You should turn around them once a year to get the most life out of them. This way they wear the spocket teeth from both sides.

Best regards, Kirk
Click to expand...
does anyone know what they are charging for them now?
 
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