Boonville-Oneida County Fairgrounds, Boonville, New York

January 30th - February 1st, 2009

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ANDY SEELMAN SNOW FESTIVAL PARADE MARSHALL 
By Betty Haig,

Andy Seelman, a longtime snowmobile enthusiast, was nominated by Jon Walston, and also by the entire Lost Trail Snowmobile Club to lead the Snow Festival Parade during the third annual snowmobile parade in 2009. Seelman did some remembering back to the old days when there were no trails and people just ran their sled rampant everywhere.  Ron Cyr an initiator of the first Snow Festivals in Boonville, and Andy discussed the need for some sort of making order out of the chaos that accompanied all the sleds that were inundating Boonville during the Festival.  In 1968, the two held an open meeting in the Middle School with close to 100 people attending. They came from Remsen, West Leyden, Forestport, Constableville, Port Leyden as well as Boonville. Everyone agreed, and were anxious to start a club that would begin the process of making trails with Boonville as the hub.  By 1969 with approximately 150 members, The Lost Trail Snowmobile Club was Incorporated.  Work then began in obtaining permission from landowners to use their land.  The first trail was to Alder Creek Inn . then in subsequent years, the club headed to Constableville, Highmarket, Forestport, and most recently to Port Leyden/Lyons Falls.  Andy had a hand in all of it and even though he just recently sold his last sled, he still participates in the meetings, the safety courses,  and trail work.  

Andy remembers his first sled was a 1961 Polaris Sno Traveler and his last one was a 2004 Polaris, with a couple Arctic Cats thrown in the middle.  He has been on the Clubs Board of Directors many times and was Trail Boss for a great number of years.  In past years Andy was one of the groomer operators who smoothed the trails.  For years, they used snowmobile and bedsprings to perform this act, but the first real groomer was an Ireland with a 24 H.P. engine and a home made trailer that Percy Fredericks made. The Club has now graduated to two groomers, a 2003 Pisten Bully and  a 2007 Kubota Four Track. Back in the early days there were no signs to mark trails.  What they did is use paint to mark the snow some of it was yellow, some blue and some red. 

Andy remembers he had a new Arctic Cat Pantera and was out painting trails. Not realizing what the wind was doing, when Andy got home, he was splattered with red, blue and yellow paint.  But his new sled was also wind painted. It took some doing, but they were able to clean it up to look like a new one again. 

With the Snow Festivals in Boonville, Seelman who was a businessman at the time, saw all that money come into the area and he and Cyr, knew they should make things more accommodating, to keep the economy flowing.  For 40 years Andy had Boonville Vending and distributed snack food, cigarettes and candy to vending machines in five surrounding counties.  He retired from his business in 1990, which gave him more time to devote to the Lost Trail Club and to riding the trails.  He has many miles under his belt, between riding sled and driving groomer. 

Prior to starting the club and the trail, local people, mostly farmers, were getting annoyed with finding their fences cut by snowmobilers who wanted to ride and just went in every direction.  As soon as the Club was started, landowners were happy to find some control over the use of their land and were agreeable to make it available for trails.  Everything was done with handshakes.  However, when traffic on the trails kept increasing, landowners started to get worried about being sued if someone had an accident.  Thus the inception of liability insurance.  Today, with the New York State Snowmobile Association in operation, all landowners are covered by a million dollar liability policy. Each Club in turn offers other options.  Lost Trail offers a free membership and a free voucher to register sleds if desired.  They also honor the landowners once a year with a celebration . 

Seelman is a native of the Fish Creek / Mohawk Hill area where he lived until he entered the U. S. Army.  He was in the European Theater during World War II.  Andy has two daughters from a previous marriage, one living in Avon and the other in Rochester.  He has been a resident of Boonville since his return from the Army in 1946. 

Andy said he has seen the sport grow from infancy to something that is like a well-run business and its all been done by volunteers, like himself.  He hopes that people continue to enjoy the trails, ride safely and obey the rules.