Boys and their toys

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This article was published 25/09/2023 (943 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kenora has FFUN Motorsports. Gimli has Chudds Powersports and the Gimli Snowmobile Centre. And soon, Lac du Bonnet will have Lake Life Powersports.

The popular cottage destination for Manitobans will welcome its first Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) dealer to its northern entrance at the corner of Hwy. 11 and Hwy. 317, in early 2024.

Construction on the first building, a 16,000-square-foot space dedicated to products and services such as all-terrain vehicles, side-by-sides and snowmobiles, is well underway and is expected to open in February. The second structure, a 21,000-square-foot facility that offers marine supplies — including those by the popular Mercury brand — such as pontoon and fishing boats, engines, marine repair service and parts and accessories, will open in 2025.

It’s been a long time coming for store owners and childhood friends Craig Becker and Glen Hart, who decided to take a crack at going into business together in 2021. They cottaged at Becker’s family property in Lac du Bonnet for 30 years before Hart bought a place of his own nearby a decade ago.

“We grew up together,” said Hart. “Our parents were neighbours in Charleswood in Winnipeg, so we’ve been close friends for almost 40 years now.”

Added Becker: “It’s kind of the Cinderella story for how it could have all worked out and where it ended up.”

The idea for an all-in-one power sports and marine dealership was born out of a need they identified from their own experience.

Their time biking around the town as teenagers turned into hours in power sports, including snowmobiling in the winter. Any time their machines need a fix, however, there’s an understanding it will take time before they return to the trails because of a shortage of services, Becker said.

“(The area has) some of the best snowmobile trails in the province — it has the largest snowmobile club in all of Manitoba — and Glen and I have been going out there all the time. But any time anything breaks or any time anything happens, you’ve got to drag it all back to the city or you’ve got to get parts from the city,” he said.

A BRP dealership is in high demand for popular cottage areas such as Lac du Bonnet. It’s the No. 1 power sports manufacturer globally with an 89 per cent market share in the personal watercraft space and more than 70 per cent share in the snowmobile sector.

“The area has been incredibly under serviced,” Becker said. “The name of the town kind of says it all. It’s a four-seasons playground — that’s what the moniker for Lac du Bonnet is — and, frankly, there’s just a lot of power sports stuff out there. You drive by every cottage dock, there’s a boat, there’s Sea-Doos, and you see quads parked by the garage.

“We just wished there would be something out here for service and sales and everything.”

In October 2021, BRP began an application process for prospective owners, after its research proved the area was in great demand for a shop. That attracted 12 applicants, which, Becker noted, emphasized the need.

“It’s been tons of positive feedback from the community,” Hart said of locals noticing the construction project. “Everybody’s excited about everything from the sales and service to the employment opportunity. It’s been a long time since a new good-sized business came to town.

“Everybody knows about it, it’s all been positive and everybody’s really excited to get it to open and everybody’s excited to support it.”

Lake Life Powersports doesn’t have a website, yet, but Becker said that will launch in the coming months, with job postings for its first building.

The pair hopes Lake Life Powersports can stimulate additional development in Lac du Bonnet and create more job opportunities going forward.

“There hasn’t been a ton of development there in the last 40 years and it’s such a great place. It’s obviously very close to my heart … but as a cottage community, it’s grown in popularity tremendously and there’s been a huge residential cottage investment from people building new places to upgrading current ones,” Becker said.

“It’s generationally changing. It’s an amazing community, the people in it are wonderful and I think it’s primed for further investment and to support the whole four seasons playground.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca