
2022 Doug Hansen, Swan City Club – Past member of the ASA board of directors
We all knew and will remember Doug’s love for the sport, his positive attitude, and friendly demeanour. These attributes and more made him a great ASA representee for the Mighty Peace Region. Doug was always available to help, listen, and provide insightful ideas and suggestions to help the club and sport as a whole. Doug was always aware of both sides of his responsibilities and responded with positive comments and directions to ensure the end goal was accomplished. To really understand Doug’s love of the sport, it is important to mention that Doug did not reside in The Swan City Snowmobile Club area. Having grown up in Grande Prairie, and ridden thousands of kilometres in the Kakwa area, he fell in love with the trails there. Despite the miles, he chose to travel from Sherwood Park to visit the clubs; he took the time to understand each one of the clubs and the different dynamics they presented and unique challenges they faced. To say Doug was an involved member was an understatement; he was a father, husband, senior manager in a successful and busy company, and had a seat on several other committees. Despite so many commitments, Doug made things happen – certainly, a testament to his work ethic. The type of person to make friends everywhere he went, there is a huge amount of respect from everyone he met for the efforts he made to balance everything and have a solid family behind him. Doug was an amazing man. He will be sadly missed and remembered forever.
Doug Hansen passed away on February 19, 2022 at the age of 57.
2021 Harvey Arnott and Marion Dejong, Swan Hills
This couple deserves recognition for their support of the Swan Hills Snogoers club and its activities throughout the years. They joined the club in the late 80’s and became very active in the club taking on executive positions and club activities. Harvey stepped into the president's position for a number of years and Marion took on the event coordinator for the Easter Seals Snowarama Rides. Marion was also the Jamboree Club Rep when they hosted it back in 1995. The event went off without a hitch. She doesn’t snowmobile anymore. Although she is not actively involved with the club anymore you can still see her in the background at our rallies cooking the fantastic meals.
Harvey has a vast knowledge of the Swan Hills area and helped people who were lost more than once. The Goose Tower trails were drawn up using his knowledge of the area to make loops. He was instrumental in getting most of the Swan Hills trail system signed properly, especially the Trans Canada Snowmobile. Harvey’s biggest accomplishment in the club was getting the clubhouse built at Krause Lake.
Although Harvey and Marion no longer own a snowmobile, they have made a big impact on snowmobiling in Alberta.
2020 Dan Guenette, Whitecourt
Dan Guenette has been snowmobiling and involved in the Whitecourt Trailblazers club for over 25 years. He started out volunteering trail cleaning and has since been on the board in positions as a Director, Publicity, Safety Director, Vice President, President and Past President. He is an integral part of the club. Some of his achievements include putting the Whitecourt Trailblazers and Golden Triangle on the map, aiding with purchasing snow cats, building shelters, developing over 200k ms of trails, annual fundraising, annual rallies, 3 Winter Snowmobile Invasions and developing a volunteer club the local folks love to be a part of.
Dan loves to always do things over and above, always in the best and biggest way! “Go big or go home” is his motto.
One of his major contributions would be his vision and event production with the 2015 World Snowmobile Invasion, where Whitecourt invited the World to participate in our event and break a world record. There were 1,047 snowmobiles recorded, making it the worlds largest parade of snowmobiles. They still hold the record. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-parade-of-snowmobiles
Dan and his wife left Whitecourt in 2022 and will truly be missed by both the club, and the community.
2019 Anne Nagel, Swan Hills
The Swan Hills Snow Goers nominated this award to a very deserving lady. Anne is one of the founding members of the club. Snowmobiling has been a part of her family life for many years and she was always there to support them. Over the years she has held many club positions and has been involved every rally, jamboree and special events.She has also received the Alberta Centennial Outstanding AlbertanAward for her community spirit and contributions to making her community a better place to live.
On June 12, 2024, Ann Nagel of Swan Hills, AB, passed away peacefully with all her children and grandchildren by her side at the age of 84 years.
DANNY SMYL
Danny has been a member of the Trail Blazers for many years, and during that time has filled many roles, including his present long running role as President. He has made a significant contribution of time and effort towards developing, improving and maintaining trails. Danny is one of the founding members of the Riverland RecreationalTrails Society, which operates Alberta’s Iron Horse Trail. In addition to all of his trail work, Danny has supported ASA initiatives and local snowmobiling.
If you see a groomer on the Iron Horse Trail, it is likely to be Danny.
Elaine Gunderson, Whitecourt
50 years ago, Elaine started snowmobiling with her husband when they would go out on dates in Whitecourt. Her husband Dale was involved with the founding of the Whitecourt Snowmobile Club and eventuallyElaine was convinced to attend meetings. In the late 90’s she became treasurer, and she has been involved in the club ever since.Recently Elaine stopped riding but she certainly still supports and promotes the sport. She knows everyone who has had a membership and who has been involved in the club. A pioneer in the snowmobilingsport she has been a Trailblazer member since the beginning . She has led the team through financial success and the club's well respected reputation.
2018 Dave Bilsky Athabasca
Dave has been an avid snowmobiler for over 40 years. He has lived in the Athabasca area for most of his life and has been a member of the Athabasca River Runners Snowmobile Club since it was established in 1992. He has played a major role in the development and maintenance of their entire trail system. He was the club president for 15 years.
Dave is always the first guy to headout to clear the trails for the upcoming season and spends countless hours grooming while everyone else is busy riding throughout the winter. Not very often does he go out snowmobiling without a purpose behind his ride–whether it be checking the firewood available, fixing signage, outhouse maintenance, or trail clearing. He prides himself on the Athabasca trail system and is always encouraging people to come out and see them. Dave has such commitment and dedication to our club and the sport of snowmobiling that he even lets the club use his own personal cabin as one of their rest areas on the trail system and for our annual snowmobile rally. Dave also loves getting his grandkids out on the trails in the area and has been introducing them to mountain riding as well.
The club honestly cannot thank Dave enough for all of his hard work: this award is truly well deserved.
Leo Zilinski Whitecourt
Leo has had a passion for snowmobiling from a young age. He became a member of the ASA in the 70’s and started attending their meetings. Leo bought his first sled in 1973 while in Kitimat, BC. He moved with his family to Whitecourt in the 1970’s where he immediately appreciated the privilege of being able to ride in town. He recognized this privilege could be in jeopardy with irresponsible snowmobilers in town and it triggered the idea to organise a club to protect the trail. In 1980, along with riding buddy Glen Kingdon the Whitecourt Trailblazers Snowmobile Club was formed.
Through meeting with the club, The Alberta Forestry Service partnered with the Trailblazers and had them take over the old Forestry trails and staging area. There were trails developed in Whitecourt, Swan Hills and Fox Creek. He was involved with the Incorporation of the Whitecourt Trailblazers, development of the Golden Triangle and the designation of Whitecourt as the “Snowmobile Capital of Alberta”. He served as the President for several years and held other positions in the club to encourage new leadership within the Trailblazers. Ina ddition, he was Vice President of the ASA and held other ASA Board of Director positions. He has worked with many local and provincial organisations, businesses and government office.
Leo has also received SnoRider Magazine awards throughout the years. The Trailblazers and the ASA recognise Leo as a “Pillar of his Community” and a true ambassador of snowmobiling.
2016 Cyril Lanctot Whitecourt
2015 Harold Bellwood Fox Creek
2014 Glen Gillis Ft. Sask
2012 Alex Manweiller, Whitecourt
Keith Haustein, Tail Creek
Don Kelm, Swan Hills
2011 Bob Lehman, Alberta Beach
Bob Lehman was nominated by the Alberta Beach Snowmobile Club. At the time of nomination, Bob had been sledding for more than 30 years in the Onoway, Alberta Beach area. Bob always supported the club especially with trail maintenance. Before Alberta Beach Snowmobile Club purchased their groomer, Bob personally bought a groomer to maintain the clubs trails. Not only did he own the groomer but he operated it by volunteering his time. In addition to grooming, he was also involved in the club's trail development. Bob has spent thousands of hours on trail development, whether it is planning, building or maintaining the Club’s trails system. Bob is a very active member and can always be counted on to help.
Bob passed away peacefully on August 8, 2022.
2010 Elburne and Freda Bean, McMurray Sno-Drifters
There is truly nothing more important to an association than it's volunteers. No task can be accomplished without dedicated members like Elburne and Freda Bean. Throughout the summer Elburne was busy constructing new warm up shelters for the trails, stock piling the warm up shelters for winter he also keep the trails signs and helps with grooming, plus any other thing that needs to be done.
Freda was also very busy with her club, along with Elburne building warm up shelters, Freda was instrumental in getting the club a permanent home for the clubs "Storage Building". As the saying goes " Behind every good man is a good woman". The Bean's love to ride the trails and have been very active members of the Ft. McMurray Sno-Drifters since 1996.
Elburne, Freda and their oldest son Barry Bean won the 2018 CCSO National Excellence Award for Snowmobile Family. After the Fort McMurray Fire of 2016, the Bean family put in countless hours to ensure the safety of the trails.
2008 Roger and Lorraine Pillman
2007 Dale Gunderson
2006 Louise Sherren , past Executive Director of the ASA
For the first year of the “Louise Sherren Award” (named after the first Executive Director of the Alberta Snowmobile Association) Louise Sherren received that award. Since then the ASA has given awards with this name to people who have dedicated their lives to the improvement of Snowmobiling.
Louise first became involved with the association as an active club member in 1975 being involved as Editor of the club newsletter, public relations and being on the Racing committee for the Edmonton Snowmobile Club. She rode a snow jet at that time and then moved up to a 350 Enticer, onto a Phazer, Mountain Cat, ZR, Mountain Max and Summit 600!
Later she became a member of the association staff in 1986 under the then President Glen Kingdon. Louise had the pleasure of serving many other fine Presidents as well, namely Shirley Pratt, Susan Quesseth, Glen Gillis, Trent Law and Patrick McGrath.
During her time with the ASA she worked on Program Development. At that time the ASA had over 5,000 km of maintained trail, 38 shelters, 13 groomers and thousands of members within the ASA which as she stated “could not have been accomplished without the dedication of the clubs and boards I have been involved with”.
The founding executive and board members of the association must be commended for their foresight and dedicated efforts in developing strong clubs, putting good policies in place and trying to keep areas open to snowmobiling. Closures go way back starting with the mountain parks in the 1970s. Land access is still an issue for our members and through many government processes and partnerships, the ASA have many trail groups who have aligned themselves to gearing up for sustainable and maintained trail systems.