A Gimli-based welder and machinist is really making tracks after he started manufacturing parts for Bombardier snow machines, which are so integral to and beloved by Manitoba’s commercial fishers.
Ryan Johnson opened a shop called RJ GMWR (Ryan Johnson General Machining, Welding and Repair) in the Gimli Industrial Park last spring where he has been making parts for the iconic vehicles. He’s seen production ramp up once people from across Manitoba and beyond learned of his service.
As far as he’s aware, Johnson said he’s the only manufacturer in Western Canada making Bombardier snow machine parts, which are no longer avaiable from the Bombardier company, as well as the only manufacturer focused on supporting the commercial fishing industry.
Having welding and machining experience, as well as a penchant for “tinkering and fixing mechanical stuff” all his life, Johnson said he learned how to make the parts.
“I’ve always been the mechanical type and some is just experience I gained over time. My dad had a Bombardier he used for commercial fishing. I started off this business building components such as net lifters and sleigh augurs for the commercial fishery then expanded into making Bombardier parts,” said Johnson, who in addition to running the business is the superintendent of vessel operations and chief engineer of the Namao research vessel that operates on Lake Winnipeg during open water season. “People started contacting me and asking if I’d work on their Bombardiers and I started doing that. We’re now getting more and more customers.”
With the Bombardier company no longer making the parts, snow machine owners in Manitoba used to get their parts made at Shaver & Sons Enterprises in Stonewall. When Shaver closed down last year, Johnson bought his equipment, outfitting his shop with jigs, templates and other specialized machinery required to make parts that fit perfectly into and onto the snow machines.
After a few months of operation, Johnson hired a full-time employee and a high school student.
The ground-breaking snow machines – which look like a cross between Herbie the Love Bug (Volkswagen Beetle) with its round, aerodynamic design and a Second World War Sherman tank with its tracks – were the brainchild of Joseph-Armand Bombardier, who founded L’Auto-Neige Bombardier Limitee (Bombardier Snowmobile Limited) in rural Quebec in the 1930s.
The inventor and entrepreneur invented the snow machines, which are also referred to as a snow coach or snow bus, to help people in rural areas traverse difficult snow-covered terrain. He built the B7 (for seven passengers) in 1937 then the B12 (for 12 passengers) five years later, according to Bombardier’s website. The vehicles were put to all sorts of uses, including transporting school children, medical personnel and freight.
Although the snow machine is pronounced “bom-bar-dee-eh”, most people say “bom-ba-deer” or even “bomber” for short. The machines are most commonly painted blue or yellow and have a gas engine in the rear, an enclosed cab, round passenger windows, tracked wheels and large skis that sit under the bonnet, along with plenty of cargo-carrying capacity that make them indispensable to commercial fishers. They can travel quickly, at speeds of about 35-40 miles per hour.
Customers come to Johnson looking for new parts such as suspension springs, skis, ski rods, tracks, bearings and “everything else,” said Johnson. Parts break will break down from age or from cold temperatures and the unforgiving terrain on Lake Winnipeg.
“If you drive your Bombardier into a piece of ice, you can break parts because ice doesn’t give. And it doesn’t matter how careful you are when you’re driving,” he said.
The best thing Bombardier owners can do every year is a little bit of maintenance so that eventual repairs don’t become a big expense.
Johnson said he thinks the Bombardier company stopped making its snow machines around 1981. Part of the reason for that could be that they were so well constructed with a long lifespan.
“I’m not exactly sure why they stopped production; I don’t know if there just wasn’t enough demand at the time or what. I think in part it has to do with the older Bombardiers that run so long. We’ve got Bombardiers out there from the late 1940s and early 1950s still going on Lake Winnipeg and other places,” said Johnson.
The Express contacted Bombardier for information about when and why it stopped making the machines.
Johnson’s company is not only supporting the commercial fishing industry in Manitoba, but also the tourism industry around the world. He said he’s had parts inquiries from Bombardier owners in Hay River in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, the United States and Norway.
“I just had a message the other day from someone in Norway who has a fleet of 12 Bombardiers and he’s looking for some parts. There are also a few guys down in the States that run them. There’s one fellow from Yellowstone [National Park] that has a fleet and has contacted me about parts,” said Johnson. “Lately, it seems there’s a big surge in people restoring them – not just fixing them up to use for work, but restoring them the same way you would a classic car, putting a nice leather interior in them with a stereo system and using them for pleasure.”
Restored Bombardiers can be worth a mint, fetching anywhere from $40,000 up to $75,000, he added.
Some commercial fishers have thought about converting their Bombardiers to electric vehicles, said Johnson, but the biggest problem with that would be the added weight of the batteries.
“You want to keep them light so that you can get them on thinner ice. The heavier the machine is, the thicker the ice you’ll need,” said Johnson. “Most guys with wide-gauge Bombardiers will wait for about 10 to 12 inches of ice before they’ll take them out.”
Justin Gerbrandt, who lives in the Gimli area and is a mechanic by trade, had a starring role for three years on the Ice Vikings television documentary about commercial ice fishing on Lake Winnipeg. He and his fishing partner Mike Lenton, who also appeared on the show, restored a 1950s Bombardier with help from Johnson and featured it in the program.
Gerbrandt said they used to get their Bombardier parts from Shaver in Stonewall, and alerted Johnson that Shaver was going out of business.
“Ryan is one in a thousand guys that would be able to take this job on,” said Gerbrandt. “There’s not a whole lot of younger people now that want to get into a trade like Ryan is doing or that have previous knowledge of this kind of work. Ryan has a background working on engines on different ships.”
Johnson built a frame for their Bombardier into which to mount a new engine and transmission that Gerbrandt himself built.
“What a lot of guys like Mike and myself have done is taken an old bomber and installed a new engine and some new electronics in it like GPS and put in lights and other stuff,” he said.
The importance of having Johnson supporting the commercial fishery in Manitoba, as well as other owners of the snow machines, can’t be emphasized enough, he said.
“Mike and I are both very happy that Ryan took this on. Just because I’m a mechanic doesn’t mean that I can machine a part for myself; I can’t do that. This is where Ryan is critical to our fishing operation,” said Gerbrandt. “And he’s been super good if we need something by a certain time; he understands – because he has commercial fished and his dad has fished – that a week without your bomber will equal a lot of lost revenue. Having him take this business over is not only just good for convenience because he’s in Gimli, but it prevents fishers from losing potentially huge amounts of revenue.”
Although Gerbrandt and Lenton rely on their Bombardier to transport thousands of pounds of fish from the lake, they also use snowmobiles until there’s enough ice to withstand the weight of the snow machines plus their catch, he said. Even then, commercial fishers will “always need snowmobiles to drive in front of the bombers” to check pressure cracks in the ice. Their own machine once hit a crack and sank down about two feet. But he’s not heard of anyone in the last 15 to 20 years being unable to get out after going down.
“If you ever hit a big pressure crack or have a sheet of ice open up, your bomber will go down. That’s why a lot of guys on Lake Winnipeg will have top hatches cut into the ceiling of their machines. We put one in ours. I’ve heard of a lot of guys that had to use them,” said Gerbrandt. “The bomber starts going down and that top hatch above your two front seats is your only lifeline. It wasn’t something they [Bombardier company] thought of when they designed them.”
Johnson said when Bombardiers or other ice fishing vehicles sink or get stuck in ice, his uncle in Riverton, who has a towing company, can pull them out of the lake with a frame and a winch.
For more information about the services at Ryan Johnson General Machining, Welding and Repair, call (204) 651-0121. The shop is located in the Gimli Industrial Park at 193 Quintal Ave.
