The Last Excursion
Posted by Oak and Oar on
This past weekends proved to be some of the best riding days of the year, granted probably the last of the season. Saturday and Sunday averaged out at 1°C which made for some wet but warm riding conditions. After a few thousand miles or so this season, we decided to pack in the sleds. Assuming we don’t get one last dump.
I picked up the paper Sunday night to catch up on the world only to find that this past Saturday we lost “The Grandfather of Snowmobiling”, Mr. Edgar Hetteen. The son of first-generation Swedish immigrants, Edgar Hetteen grew up on a farm near Roseau, Minnesota. With an eighth grade education and a passion for tinkering Edgar would co-found one of the leaders in snowmobile innovations Polaris Industries, which today still calls Roseau home for production and testing. Shortly after co-founding Polaris, Mr. Hetteen went on to start a little company by the name of Arctic Cat. To put this in perspective Edgar founded half of the OEM in today’s snow market. Not a bad track record. It is no secret that his innovation and passion for the sport of snowmobile was instrumental in taking the sport to where it is today.