When Garmanic’s F.Y.O.S. series published, I looked at them all and was disappointed that the brand of snowmobile my family owned, Alouette, was not included. While doing this excellent series with all its information of various models of snowmobiles, I saw there was a spot nearby to add another snowmobile cache about my favorite brand.
Here is a little history on Alouettes. With a name like Alouette, there was never any doubt that its roots were in French Canada and, more specifically, Quebec. But the brand had many owners during its brief, nine-year run that started in model year 1967 and ended in 1976. It was launched by the Featherweight Corp out of Montreal during the fall of 1966, but that company was sold to Bangor Punta out of Connecticut in 1970. It later became a part of toy giant Coleco from 1972 into 1975, when Coleco spun off its snowmobile division to Rupp, where it met its end.
My first snowmobile experience was probably 1969. Snowmobiling for us was a family outing. My parents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and family friends would spend weekends in Caseville, Michigan or the Houghton Lake area to ride through the woods or old back roads (as there were no groomed trails back then) and stop for lunch with a campfire and hot dog roast. My dad always carried a leather bota filled with his homemade wine on these outings to share at lunch. I remember riding on I-75 in Roscommon County before it was open to car traffic. We had a couple of dog sleds we towed which were a favorite for us kids to ride on.
The Alouettes we owned were my Dad’s 1969 or 1970 XL 26 (26 horsepower) and my Mom’s 1970 XL 20 (20 horsepower). My Uncle Jerry had several Alouettes including a Big Bird, a Brute or Super Brute, and at least one other, as he kept wrecking them (his nickname was El Destructo). My Aunt Shirley had a little XL 14 (14 horsepower) which could turn on a dime. I was riding behind my Dad on Houghton Lake on our way to Tip Up Town with our family group when another snowmobile doing 60, which was very fast then, hit us broadside and totaled my Dad’s XL 26. He replaced it with a 1973 Eliminator 440, which was fast enough to scare him, and he rarely rode it. I loved the speed of it though. Later on, Dad bought an old Evinrude with reverse to haul his ice fishing sled and shanty around. That was his only non-Alouette snowmobile we ever owned. After our accident, in which I was severely injured, our family gave up snowmobiling. I still rode my parents’ old machines for about 15 years.
The Cache
The cache is a black plastic jar hidden in an old Kirtland’s Warbler breeding area that I census for many years. I would like to thank Garmaniac for putting out his snowmobiling series to inspire me to put this cache out and getting to relive a lot of happy family memories. My old Chevy Cobalt would have no problems making it to this cache.