MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • March 1, 2026
Snowmobiling is big business in Maine, generating hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Beyond the snowfall, the industry depends entirely on the goodwill of landowners along the state’s vast trail network, and the work of the thousands of volunteers who take care of those trails. Experts across Maine say both of those are increasingly at risk. Tensions between landowners and riders who don’t always follow the rules has put that relationship at a “boiling point,” according to Cpl. Kris MacCabe, who handles landowner relations as a state game warden. At the same time, the volunteers who have held the trail network together for decades are getting older, with not enough members from the next generation willing to take on the same task.