It was the Flood of the Century. The Father’s Day Flood of 2018 made national news, and took the life of an area young man. It caused millions of dollars in damage to roads and trails.

While the vast majority of people, government entities, and businesses were focused on their homes, businesses, and roads, it was the leadership of the Keweenaw ATV Club immediately focused on Off Road Vehicle (ORV) and Snowmobile Trails.

Key word: immediately! For the thousands that were affected by the flood, few would have even blinked an eye on recreational trails. However the Keweenaw ATV Club (KATV) knows that ORV and Snowmobile trails has an economic impact in the area into the Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars.

It was hard enough on the area to lose roads, lose access to homes and businesses, much less lose the dollars the ORV/Snowmobile Community brings to the area. Especially in an area that is so reliant on tourism.

It was on June 17, 2018, immediately after the rain stopped that the KATV club sent out a letter.

The letter opened up with; “Keweenaw ATV Club needs everyone’s help. We need to ensure the rebuilding of the ATV/Snowmobile trail system in Lake Linden, Hancock, and Calumet from the recent damaging rains in our area.”

“The fear of the KATV Club and others is decisions will be made ‘not in favor of rebuilding’ the damaged trails. Please help prevent this from happening,” Mike McMahon of the KATV Club stated in the letter. “Huge amounts of monies from recreational passes, donations and others have been used to maintain and sign the trails to ensure the trails public usage.”

While work on the trails is still going on, there is one segment of the trail that is still not open to ORV/Snowmobile Use. The trail that runs from Dollar Bay to Lake Linden. That stretch was washed out almost completely by the flood, and has been closed ever since.

In May 2020, Ron Yesney, the DNR’s Upper Peninsula trails coordinator with the DNR Parks and Recreation Division, stated, “Re-Opening a trail between Dollar Bay and Lake Linden is very important to these local communities for economic and recreational purposes.”

While many portions of the trails damaged in the Flood were repaired, it was the trail from Dollar Bay to Lake Linden that needed a lot of leg work, letter-writing, and meetings with State Government Officials.

Work began along the 14-mile route. This included stabilizing damaged sections of the trail. 77 places on the trail had significant storm damage.

Then the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, and that didn’t help!

It was in May 2021 that the KATV Club coordinated a meeting with Local, County and State Officials. This included state Sens. Jo Bumstead, Ed McBroom, and Wayne Schmidt; state Reps. Greg Markkanen, John Damoose, Beau LaFave; County Commissioners Tom Tikkanen, Glen Anderson, Al Koskela; County Administrator Ben Larson; County Administrator Ben Larson, John Haissler of the City of Hancock, and Brad Barnett of the Keweenaw Convention and Visitors Bureau.

It was in September 2021 that the Michigan House of Representatives, with help from this area’s state Rep., Greg Markkanen, passed a budget with funding of $8 million to repair that stretch of trail.

Fast forward to this spring. They had meetings on March 7 and May 1. It was at those meeting that the KATV Club had concerns regarding the rebuild of the Lake Linden-Hubbell trail.

The club’s officers sent a letter to the DNR stating, “We have heard that there is 8 Million Dollars allocated for this project. 4 Million Granted by the Governor and 4 Million left from FEMA funds. At our 03/07/22 we received an estimate for the rebuild, which figures at between 6 and 6.5 Million. The KATV Club would like to see the remainder of the funds for this project, set aside for future maintenance and repairs in a separate account or earmarked for this specific trail system.”

However to begin the work, the DNR is working with private property owners on putting in culverts. Culverts that will require them to not only include the trail but go on private property.

“There was a reason why the trail washed out in so many areas. We need to repair the trail based on thorough Engineering where we can help prevent the washout problems that we had. This means that the culverts will be larger and longer then they originally were,” stated Daryl St. John of the KATV Club.

“We can avoid a future shut-down of this trail from another storm or other unforeseen circumstance,” explained McMahon. “The economic hardship of having this trail shut down since 2018 has been widespread to all the businesses that serve those who utilize the trail system.”

While the trail will be a DNR Designated Route, used by multiple recreational users, it was the KATV Club that took the lead immediately after the Father’s Day Flood of 2018. To the tune of one day after the flood.

“We’re proud to help and work closely with the Keweenaw Snowmobile Club and other users,” commented Kitty Belick of the KATV Club. The Keweenaw ATV Club is a Non-Profit Club that started in 2004. “We are funded by DNR Grants and much appreciated donations to maintain the many trails in our area. We really want to thank Kevin Store of the Portage Health Foundation.”