Description

Powered by a rear-mounted Ford V-8 engine, the B7 is a seven passenger snowmobile designed and built by Joseph-Armand Bombardier in the winter of 1936-1937. The model held in the Canada Science and Technology Museum’s collection dates to 1939. Bombardier received the patent for his sprocket wheel and track system in 1937, the B7 was the first snowmobile to utilize this system and was also the first commercial success for the company. Bombardier in fact designed his first prototype for the snowmobile at the age of fifteen and spent his late teens working and studying mechanics in Montreal. At the age of nineteen he returned to his hometown of Valcourt, Quebec to open his own garage, where the first B7 was eventually built. The snowmobile was Bombardier’s solution to the lack of transportation in isolated snowbound rural communities. The vehicle’s wooden frame is covered by sheet metal painted red and sits atop bombardier’ innovative sprocket wheel and rubber track system. Using a rubber track the sprocket wheel enabled the B7 to travel through snow by evenly distributing the vehicle’s weight over the length of the tracks. In the 1930s the B7 was primarily used by doctors, mailmen, and innkeepers. It was bombardier’s continual striving for innovation that led to the creation of the personal snowmobile recognized internationally as the ‘Ski Doo’ in 1959. Today, Bombardier Recreational Products is the number one manufacturer of snowmobiles in the world.

Gwen Baddeley

MOBILITY AND THE SNOWMOBILE IN NORTHERN CANADA

Gwen Baddeley,
M.A. Art History, Concordia University

The B7 was the first in a series of innovative off-road vehicles produced by Joseph-Armand …

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Praise (from the series Return).

Don Hutton,
2009. Silver-gelatin print photograph. 76.2 x 228.6 cm.

The work and world view of Don Hutton, originally from Toronto, has been deeply influenced by …

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