Woman's goal: snowmobile film

Nov. 1--If the history of the snowmobile doesn't seem like the stuff of movies, you probably didn't grow up in a region where the ski-equipped machines can turn a frozen landscape into a playground.

And you haven't heard about the 1,200-mile snowmobile voyage from the Bering Sea to Fairbanks, Alaska, in March 1960 that proved the "iron dog" could make it through the worst arctic conditions.

Now an Omaha woman who grew up in a Minnesota town with a family of snowmobile pioneers plans a documentary film to celebrate the technology that changed the northland's concept of wintertime transportation.

Cindy Anderson was a neighbor of the Allan Hetteen family in Roseau, Minn., growing up with the family's boys.

The boys' uncle, Edgar Hetteen, and a brother-in-law, David Johnson, founded Polaris Industries, a primary sponsor of Wahl Brothers Racing Inc., a snowmobile racing team. Edgar later founded Arctic Cat snowmobiles.

The movie, Anderson said, will commemorate the snowmobile companies, the racing team and the Hetteen family, including Timmy Hetteen, one of Allan's sons, who in 1966 died at age 13 in a hunting accident.

The movie project faces challenges of its own, especially the need for $300,000 to cover production costs. But Anderson said she is determined to see the project through, using Edgar Hetteen's biography as a guide.

Omaha attorney Tom Underwood, who is working with Anderson, said she is looking for grants, donors and investors.

"Obviously, none of this is going to make it without the financing," he said. "But I told Cindy, the way to have things happen is to make things happen."

Anderson has approval from the Hetteens and other key figures in the story, Underwood said. She has enlisted Nebraska screenwriter Robin Millard and has contacted some broadcast outlets about showing the finished film.

Marlys Knutson, external relations manager for Polaris, said the company isn't involved with the project but doesn't oppose it.

Knutson said Anderson is "viewing the world through her little girl's eyes," and there is an element of idealism in her plan.

By documenting the difficulties overcome by early snowmobilers, Anderson intends for the film to inspire young people to meet their challenges.

At the Hetteen family's farm equipment factory in 1954, the first Polaris Sno-Traveler was built, mainly by David Johnson, Paul Knochenmus and Orlen Johnson, according to an account in SnowRider magazine. They used a grain elevator belt for a drive track and parts of a Chevrolet bumper for the skis, the account says.

They sold the machine for $465 to help meet the company payroll.

By 1960, people were starting to doubt the viability of snowmobiles, which were prone to breakdowns. The 1,200-mile Alaskan trip was a turning point for the fledgling industry.

The 21-day trip used three of the day's best snowmobiles, towing two freight toboggans with 900 pounds of supplies each, along with gasoline and snowshoes.

The travelers -- Edgar Hetteen, Polaris employee Earling Falk, Alaskan bush pilot Rudy Billberg and Billberg's wife, Bessie -- crossed from Bethel on the coast to Fairbanks, surviving storms, cold, thaws and mechanical trouble.

Polaris, now a corporation with shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange, says the Hetteens don't claim to have invented the snowmobile, because many people were mounting motors on sleds at the time.

"What the Polaris staff did, though, was to build a snowmobile that really worked," the company's official history says. "It provided mobility on snow-covered land. It could traverse rugged terrain."

Hetteen and Johnson re-created the journey 40 years later, riding with Polaris Chief Executive Tom Tiller and others to raise money for medical research.

Anderson, who also has written lyrics for music to accompany the film, said she hopes to make the film mostly in Minnesota, with some scenes shot in Alaska and Colorado.

David Wahl, president of Wahl Brothers Racing in Greenbush, Minn., said he has talked with Anderson and is providing some racing footage for the movie.

"She's gung ho about it," he said.

Although nobody knows for sure whether the movie will happen, Wahl said, one thing is certain: "Edgar really has a story."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

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