But that's the rub: they're not sure they want to do very much. "We work hard May through November," says Shannon. "We don't want to try to keep that pace up all year long." Still, the couple have decided to open three more cabins for winter business, hoping that the extra work won't push them over the edge.
Shannon says she and Larry have gotten a lot of unsolicited offers for the camp in the past year. It turns out that entrepreneurs who get the idea of starting up their own lodge from scratch quickly discover that the costs of meeting state environmental and other licensing requirements near lakes and forests have become astronomical. That has them eyeing existing resorts like Medawisla, raising the value of such operations. So far, though, the LeRoys plan to stay put.
In a few hours, we're gassing up outside a restaurant and general store in the tiny town of Kokadjo. Inside, behind the counter and surrounded by a vast array of replacement snowmobile-engine belts hanging from hooks, are owner-operators Fred and Marie Candeloro. Though there are a handful of cabins for rent here, this establishment, known as Kokadjo's, is famous for the lunches and dinners that it dispenses to sledders--more than a thousand in a typical week. The diners take about 1,200 gallons of gas with them each day, too. By midmorning, customers quickly overwhelm the eight tables covered with green-checked tablecloths, and they crowd five and six deep around the counter, spilling out into the sled-packed parking lot.
It's not a coincidence that almost everyone who snowmobiles in the region ends up here. For one thing, two major trails cross in Kokadjo. But more important, the trails are kept in great shape. Fred Candeloro sees to it; a few years ago he shelled out $50,000 for a grooming machine, and he's out on the trail smoothing it down as it needs it, which during busy times means every night.
At Kokadjo's and other sledder hangouts, the talk almost always immediately runs to trail conditions, with riders comparing notes on which routes are "soft" (powdery), "whoop-de-doo" (bumpy), or "ballistic" (well-groomed). In addition to the improvement in snowmobiles, sledders all point to the development of an extensive, well-maintained system of trails as the other major change behind the explosion of snowmobiling in recent years.
The confluence of well-groomed trails around Kokadjo has made it a magnet for sledders. But Candeloro complains that he could take much better advantage of the traffic if he could find enough people willing to put in a hard day's work. "I'm disgusted by the labor situation around here," he says. "People don't want to get ahead. They want to be independent, get along, and be happy. It adds up to businesses' staying small." It's a notion echoed by many company owners in the area, especially those who have come from out of state. Later, Sonda Hamilton will tell me that Maine natives often regard hard-driving entrepreneurs as mildly demented.
Hamilton and I push on, finally stopping for a country gourmet dinner at the Northern Pride Lodge, a comfortable, upscalishly rustic bed-and-breakfast. Owners Jeff and Barbara Lucas used to operate two medical-equipment-supply companies in Cleveland, but they sold out to pursue what they expected to be a quieter life. That idea seems a little quaint to them now. They turn away a lot of business. "We try to limit how much we take on," says Barbara. "We worry about burning out."
According to a study by the University of Maine at Orono, the most recent figures indicate that snowmobilers spend about $12 million in Maine on lodges and restaurants during the season. Direct costs--snowmobiles and related equipment--amounted to some $175 million in the 1997-1998 season. Observers wonder how large a multiplier to apply to such direct spending in order to calculate the ultimate impact of snowmobiles on Maine's economy. How much more, for example, is spent on warm clothes? Food for the road? Liquor? Tools? Maps? And how much money is loosened up simply by the fact that more people are out and about and more businesses are staying open and active, creating a generally more bustling economy? To calculate the indirect spending, the study assigns a multiplier of 1.5 times the direct spending of $175 million, which comes out to about $263 million. But almost everyone, including the authors of the study, believes that figure is probably low. Some argue that a multiplier of 7 is more like it.
WEDNESDAY: Windup
We've spent the night at the Birches, a villagelike conglomeration of 18 cabins that stretches out along Moosehead Lake, culminating in a large lodge whose interior is dominated by a massive four-sided fireplace in its center. John Willard, the owner, joins us for breakfast. His father bought the business in 1969, he explains, but was never able to make much money from it. It was only when John took it over, in 1980, and began to expand and improve it that things began to take off. He saw the winter potential right away. He catered mostly to cross-country skiers, but just as snowmobiling began to mushroom, he was ready with grooming equipment. Now, he says, he grosses as much in February as he does in August.
The surge in winter business has carried an important bonus: it allows Willard to offer people full-time, year-round jobs with standard benefits. That, in turn, has attracted more-reliable, more-skilled employees. "I still have trouble finding high-level managers," he says, "but I'm thinking about offering equity."
He has a lot to offer, as it turns out. Willard says that like most of the nonpublic forest land in northern Maine, the area around the Birches was owned by a paper company. Normally, paper companies prefer to lease rather than sell land to developers and other businesses. But Willard, who had majored in forestry in college, managed to talk the company into selling him 11,000 acres of woods for $5 million, which he financed largely by selling his timber, which he logged himself, by contract to the company. Now he talks about expansion. His goal is not just to get bigger, he insists, but also to try to attract a more upscale sledder, to get more revenues per guest. He's already built one high-end cabin complete with a fireplace, a dishwasher, and a TV, and he plans to add more. Plus he's added a fleet of 15 rental snowmobiles.
