By Tourism Sault Ste. Marie
When the Salty Marie Trails Fest launched in the summer of 2023, it was clear Sault Ste. Marie had something special spinning in the woods. With salty race names, a welcoming community vibe, and a killer trail network, the inaugural and second-year editions punched way above their weight. In 2025? It’s leveling up once again.
We caught up with organizer Graham Atkinson, of Red Pine Tours, to talk about what’s new, what’s big, and what to expect for this year’s edition of Salty Marie — happening this July in the heart of Northern Ontario’s rugged trail country.
Question: Salty Marie years one and two got a lot of buzz — how has it evolved going into year three?
Atkinson: We were honestly stunned by the response in years one and two — over 600 participants (total) and a ton of folks from out of town. This year we’ve really leaned into that momentum. We’re growing the number of races, bringing back vendors, introducing different food options and music, and just really building out that festival atmosphere. It’s still all about the trails, but it’s starting to feel like a full-blown summer celebration.
Question: Where were participants coming from last year?
Atkinson: We had people from across Ontario, which was amazing — but what really surprised us were the long-haul visitors. We had folks come in from Michigan, Wisconsin, even Kansas City. That was a huge confidence boost. It told us we weren’t just putting on a fun local event — we were tapping into something bigger. Sault Ste. Marie is starting to land on the radar as a mountain bike destination, and that reach is only growing.
Question: What are you hoping to see this year in terms of turnout?
Atkinson: We’re aiming for 350+ participants, and we’re making a big push to get more regional and out of province riders involved this year. Last year showed us we have a community that’s hungry for this kind of thing, and the trail running scene here is really strong too. The vibe we’re after is “race hard, hang out harder” — bring your friends, bring your family, and soak up the day.
Question: The dates for this year’s event are July 25-27, what does each day look like?
Atkinson: Friday is race-setup day for the organizers, for the racers it’s the day to grab your race packs, maybe head up to Hiawatha and check out the location if you’re new to the area. Friday is also when the ‘Sultra 200’ begins. Saturday is race and festival day all day long. Sunday is a day for casual group riding, which we’ll be organizing closer to the date, and also just a day to hang out and enjoy a more casual day of riding, while we, the organizers, tear down the event.
Question: We heard there’s a new ultra-distance event being added — tell us more.
Atkinson: Yeah, this year we’re piloting a 200 km ultra-distance route — we’re calling it the ‘Sultra 200’. It’s a beast. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it showcases the region’s long-haul potential in a way that shorter courses can’t. We’re launching it with a Grand Depart from the Downtown Plaza the night before the main festival, right after packet pickup. It’ll be a great moment to bring everyone together — riders, spectators, the whole community. That downtown energy is something we want to build on in the future too.
Question: Beyond racing, what can people expect at the festival?
Atkinson: Even if you’re not racing, there’s a lot to do. Music all afternoon, local craft beer, good food, gear demos, all kinds if things — we’re creating something that’s fun whether you’re a hardcore rider or just want to hang out in the woods and watch bikes fly by. This year we’re putting more focus on making the venue really interactive. There’ll be a few surprises too — we like to keep it fresh.
Question: Any advice for first-timers thinking of checking it out?
Atkinson: Don’t be intimidated. We’ve got everything from a 2 km kids’ loop to the full 50 km and now the ultra. You can race it, ride it, run it, or just cheer people on. You don’t have to show up with the fanciest bike or the best fitness — just come ready to have a good time. That’s what the Salty Marie is all about.
Question: Final thoughts going into year three?
Atkinson: We’re excited — and really grateful. This event wouldn’t exist without the support of the local community, the businesses, and the volunteers who stepped up last year and are coming back in full force. We’ve got big dreams for where this could go, but at the end of the day, it’s still about getting people out on the trails, making memories, and celebrating the wild beauty of this part of the province. That’s the magic.
This year the Salty Marie Trails Festival is July 25-27. There are multiple mountain bike race options, ranging from the beginner friendly 2km ‘Saltine Shred’, to the epic 50km ‘Big Brine’. There are also mid-distance races, the 10km ‘Low Sodium’ and the 25km ‘Saline Short’ events.
In addition, there also 10km and 25km running events happening during the Salty Marie Trails Fest.
Register online for the Salty Marie Trails Festival, hosted by Red Pine Tours and the Sault Cycling Club at the Hiawatha Highlands
Come for a races, stay for the weekend! Enjoy a 90-minute river cruise on the Miss Marie Soo Locks Tour boat! If you are just looking to relax and enjoy some local drinks, check out our own microbrewery Northern Superior.
Check out our famous Bushplane Museum featuring 24 real Bushplanes to explore! Inside the Bushplane Museum you’ll also find Entomica Insectarium, complete with a host of real life insects and bugs you can actually hold!
Have you ever tried axe throwing? Check out one of our newest and most fun indoor activities! Missing golf and still need a fix? The Up and Down Lounge has state of the art golf simulators, which can be booked by the hour.
Get info about hotel stays or any other info by visiting the respective page on our website… and enjoy the races!
By Conor Mihell
Crank the Shield is a 3-day mountain biking event held in the Algoma Highlands just north of Sault Ste. Marie. With the city having some of the best mountain bike trails in Ontario, bringing the race back is in 2022 is a perfect fit for the community. Registration for this year’s event, being held from July 29-31, is now open. Sault Tourism spoke to event organizer Sean Ruppel about this year’s installment.
In the three years that have passed since the last installment of the Crank the Shield mountain bike stage race, organizer Sean Ruppel has had plenty of time to reflect on what makes this three-day event so special to him. “It’s always been about the type of riding,” says Ruppel, the Muskoka-based owner of Superfly Racing. “It’s all about backcountry adventure riding, out in the wilderness with real mountains and pristine rivers. There’s no better mountain biking anywhere else in the province.”
The long, pandemic-caused wait for the next Crank the Shield event has built up a lot of enthusiasm in Ruppel and race participants. Ruppel’s business plans, coordinates and hosts adventure races across Ontario. In the inaugural, 2018 Sault Ste. Marie event, Ruppel felt like he was sharing a secret treasure with the broader mountain biking community. Ruppel envisioned an epic 230-km route on many of the rugged Algoma trails he had been exploring all his life from a family cottage on Lake Superior. “Make no mistake—this is as ‘real’ as mountain biking gets!” he wrote in the race prospectus.
Ruppel’s mission was accomplished: 180 participants were awestruck (and seriously exhausted) by the expansiveness of the terrain, which included grinding climbs to some of Ontario’s highest peaks, obscure logging roads, multiple river crossings, and swooping single-track. Crank the Shield starts with a wilderness train ride aboard the famous Agawa Canyon Tour Train, and includes overnight stops at Stokely Creek Lodge and Searchmont Resort before wrapping up in Sault Ste. Marie’s Hiawatha Highlands. The 2019 sequel only added fuel to the fire. “It’s like suddenly mountain bikers from elsewhere in Ontario were aware of how epic the off-road riding is up here,” Ruppel notes. “People were starting to look north.”
Then, of course, came all the confusion and uncertainty of Covid-19, which put Crank the Shield on pause. Now, as pandemic restrictions are lifted, Ruppel is equal parts thrilled and refreshed to return to organizing the event July 29 to 31, 2022. Besides the personal pleasure of returning to his own favourite landscape of Canadian Shield mountains, wild rivers and labyrinthine trails, Ruppel believes lockdowns revealed the sense of freedom and great adventures available in Northern Ontario. “So many people have had an awakening,” he says. At the same time, Sault Ste. Marie made huge investments in mountain biking trail infrastructure, expanding the network of single-track at Hiawatha Highlands and investing in new machine-built flow trails for riders of all levels. “The Soo has always been super welcoming and friendly,” Ruppel notes, “but now it’s an even cooler vibe. The city has embraced cycling and the local community of riders is growing rapidly.”
Ottawa-based cyclist Rob Parniak was pushed to his limits by previous installments of Crank the Shield. “The route was harder than I expected,” recalls Parniak. “The first stage with rough trails, river crossings and lots of climbing was one of the most challenging days I’ve ever spent on a bicycle. Getting through it felt like a commendable accomplishment.”
For Parniak, a Sault Ste. Marie native, Crank the Shield was a reunion. He always recognized the city’s outdoor potential, and was blown away when it was put on full display. “I see a sort of scrappy pride in a lot of Sault people of my generation,” says Parniak. “It’s as if they’re determined to defy the stereotypes. They’re creating their own happiness by building their own place. The cycling scene–the bike shops, the trails, the club, this race–are tangible examples.”
Ruppel says the 2022 Crank the Shield race, (July 29-31) will fall back on what made it so successful and impactful in the past, including great hospitality at Stokely Creek and Searchmont and a vibrant after-party at the Bushplane Museum on the waterfront in downtown Sault Ste. Marie. But mostly, Ruppel insists Crank the Shield is all about the riding. “It’s a niche event,” he says. “You have to be a serious off-road rider to take on three days of this type of distance in this kind of terrain.”
Tweaks to the route bring the cumulative three-day distance to 200 km. Upgrades include: an optional climb to the summit of Batchewana Mountain, capped at 20 participants, for those seeking a high-adventure, quad-pumping climb to Algoma’s highest point that won’t be counted in total race time; improved single- and double-track segments in the Algoma Highlands and Searchmont portions of the race; and a velvety smooth, fast finish on 35-km of purpose-built mountain bike trails at Sault Ste. Marie’s Hiawatha Highlands on day three.
“This event has made such an impact on everyone who has ridden it,” says Ruppel, “and after the few years away, I’m excited to get back at it. This is my opus, my dream race. I can’t wait to provide riders with an introduction to my favourite place on earth.”
Visit the Crank the Shield website for more information including how to register.
By Conor Mihell
The history of nordic skiing in Sault Ste. Marie is long, colourful and defined by a profound sense of community. More than half a century ago, winter enthusiasts from the upstart Soo Finnish Ski Club blazed their own cross-country ski trails through the snowy woods and rugged hills of what’s now known as the Hiawatha Highlands, located just north of the city centre. Early skiers didn’t know the pleasure of machine-groomed trails. Frontrunners in the club’s recreational races not only set the pace, they also had the challenge of making tracks through the soft powder while keeping ahead of pursuing skiers. Such legendary beginnings kindled one of Ontario’s most vibrant cross-country ski scenes and blazed the way for the development of some of the province’s finest networks of trails.
Fast-forward to 2022, and local event organizer Lawrence Foster was looking to celebrate Sault Ste. Marie’s snowy winters and exceptional skiing terrain. He conceived the inaugural Beaver Freezer Marathon as a fun and adventurous recreational race to wrap up the season at the Hiawatha Highlands. Multiple race options catered to all levels of skiers, fat-bikers and trail-runners, including families, beginners and elite athletes alike, with distances of up to 42 km. Scheduled for mid-March, the event would link existing Hiawatha Highlands nordic ski and fat-bike trails with frozen lakes and wetlands, showcasing the rugged, snow-covered landscape. All proceeds from the volunteer-run event would go towards supporting future trail development to support Sault Ste. Marie’s ongoing efforts to become a hub of outdoor recreation.
“We wanted to make it fun and inclusive,” says Foster, a Sault College professor and former world-class adventure racer. “We had team options. You could race it as a relay or do it as a group. Your kid could ride or ski beside you in the relay. We wanted to have a community event with a friendly vibe, all supporting a good cause.”
First-year registrations far exceeded Foster’s expectations. Upwards of 300 competitors signed up for the event, the majority locals but also approximately 40 registrants from Sudbury, Toronto, Ottawa and Michigan. “It seemed like a great way to ski in places you wouldn’t get to experience otherwise,” says participant Paul Kyostia. “I was looking forward to skiing across the lakes with the benefit of packed trails in between.”
With Foster in charge of mapping a course, participants were sure to get a premium slice of Algoma backcountry. Starting and finishing at the Hiawatha Highlands headquarters at Kinsmen Park, the Beaver Freezer route wound through nearly a dozen frozen lakes and waterways, including Trout and Lower Island and Finn, just north of city limits. Groomers marked and packed the trails for easy skiing, cycling and running. Sault College was the inaugural event’s title sponsor and the college’s Natural Environment students volunteered to assist with race day details, including safety checkpoints and aid stations.
With abundant snowfall throughout the winter and perfect lake ice, the plan seemed bulletproof until a deluge of freezing rain forced Foster to postpone the Sunday race until the following weekend. Foster was deflated, but at the same time he knew that so many dedicated enthusiasts would do far more than salvage the event. Participants and volunteers shuffled their plans and held onto their enthusiasm, and with improved weather conditions Foster says the rescheduled race day was all he ever hoped for. “Countless people lined up to volunteer to make it a great event,” he notes. “I’ve received so many messages of support from people looking forward to next year’s Beaver Freezer. It feels good to be contributing to the momentum of trail development with the Kinsmen Club, the Sault Cycling Club, and Tourism Sault Ste. Marie.”
Foster admits that the weather always remains a wild card for late-winter events, but he’s hoping that scheduling the 2023 Beaver Freezer Marathon across an entire weekend will provide an adequate buffer for any surprises. “The biggest highlight has been the support of the community,” Foster says. But given the area’s deep and passionate roots for nordic sports, local support is a given. As word gets out, Foster anticipates a larger contingent of out-of-towners—with visitors arriving to experience the great trails and welcoming vibe of yet another shining example of why Sault Ste. Marie has always been Ontario’s winter sports capital.
The 2023 event will take place on Saturday, March 11th, with Sunday, March 12th being the backup day. All the information you’ll need including course details, timing and other info is available on the Beaver Freezer website.
Out of town guests will receive 10% off their stay at The Water Tower Inn. Details here.
