Top of the Lake Snowmobile Museum is an attraction that's never closed by snow.

Top of the Lake Snowmobile Museum

Naubinway, Michigan

Lake Michigan stretches 307 miles from south to north. On the shore at the very top, on the Upper Peninsula where there's often a lot of snow, is the Top of the Lake Snowmobile Museum. It's further north than the capital of Canada.

The one-of-kind Timberwolf was built to float.

Charlie Vallier, a lifelong Yooper, is the museum's chairman and a helpful tour guide. "I like talking about snowmobiles," he told us. "You put a quarter in me and I'll just keep going." Charlie said with a laugh that he has a personal collection, mostly at home, of 150 snowmobiles. "Why? Because I have a problem!"

Even people without problems can appreciate the hundreds of snowmobiles -- or "sleds" as they're known up here -- on display. The goal of the museum, said Charlie, is to tell the history of the snowmobile, which makes it a broadly accessible attraction. Its exhibits suggest that snowmobiles have been a blank canvas for Frozen North ingenuity, and a tempting side-hustle for some businesses that probably should have stayed away.

The Sno-Bird featured what must have been the most uncomfortable seat of any snowmobile.

Paradoxically, the museum opened because the organizers of outdoor historical snowmobile events in Naubinway wanted a place to get out of the snow.

The Hornet resembled a frog, could travel even without snow.

Charlie explained that snowmobiles began as simple mechanical helpers, hauling everything from logs to mail from Point A to B without the hassle of dogsleds or the exhausting slog of snowshoes. Then, from the 1960s until the Arab Oil Embargoes of the 1970s, snowmobiles became a fad, complete with bold colors and flashy styling. Factories that built farm machinery, chainsaws, RVs, and lawnmowers got into the snowmobile business as a way to repackage their engines and spare parts. At its height, said Charlie, 200 different companies were making snowmobiles.

Sleds on display in the museum range in size from pedal cars to SUVs. Some were built just for children, such as the Little Skipper and Arctic Kitty Cat, although they were still real snowmobiles. For women there were the Scorpion Stingerette and Galaxy 6239, both colored pink, with the Galaxy made by a company that normally built ping-pong tables. The 1971 Sno Coupe, in gold fleck paint, was made to resemble a car-of-the-future -- but its engine exhaust leaked into its enclosed cab, which could only be opened by sliding the whole thing back like the side door of a minivan. "They weren't any good," said Charlie of the Sno Coupe. Few were sold.

Charlie is partial to the museum's one-of-a-kind creations, "sleds with character" as he calls them, homemade machines by barnyard mechanics who used whatever scrap was lying around. Examples include the aluminum 1936 Westendorf, assembled with rivets and nicknamed "pizza oven" for its boxy industrial-kitchen shape. There's the 1970 Timberwolf, which its creators claimed would float if it fell through frozen ice; and the 1968 Arctic Cat Panther, a snowmobile with leopard print upholstery, beer can holders, and a keg for a gas tank. Another unique machine is the 1967 Stanaback, which resembles the bomb that Slim Pickens rode in Dr. Strangelove. Charlie said that it has no brakes, so its inventor had to plan where to stop so he wouldn't run into things.

The 1970 Sno-Coupe looked cool, but it was a lousy snowmobile.

For the ladies: the pink Galaxy.

Danger, said Charlie, wasn't much of a concern with home-built sleds. If you could only travel 15 mph then accidents weren't so bad, and it was easier to fall on snow than asphalt. But some of the more powerful manufactured snowmobiles were less carefree. The 1980 Finncat, for example, had built-in shin-pads so that riders could lean forward off the seat, which proved unexpectedly useful when the underseat engine would burst into flames. The 1973 White Fox, a radical design that looks like it inspired the landspeeder from Star Wars, supposedly killed people. The White Foxes were recalled, according to Charlie, and nearly all were then crushed and buried in a Wisconsin landfill. The museum has one of the possibly two or three survivors.

Charlie said that visitors often ask if they can ride around on the museum's exhibits, since most are still in working order, but the answer is a polite no.

The museum's presentation is mostly practical, with large paper snowflakes hanging from the rafters and snowmobiles exhibited on beds of fluffy cotton snow. Historic signs, advertisements, helmets, and other memorabilia line the walls. One sled, a purple 1976 Viking 340SS, belonged to Charlie's mom, and is displayed with her matching snowsuit. A parka, enshrined in a glass case, was worn by a snowmobiler who rode his machine all the way to the North Pole.

This unique machine, built by Fred Westendorf, was nicknamed "pizza oven" by subsequent fans.

Charlie said that there's no trouble getting exhibits for the museum because snowmobile collectors are always eager to display their vintage machines. Charlie also said that the museum, which is open daily, has never been closed because of snow, although there are times when more visitors arrive by sled than by car. It's one of the few museums with its own fireplace, so tourists in winter can both warm themselves and admire the Sno-Birds, Autoboggans, and Eskimotors of yesteryear.