Story No 0010

Ham Lake, MN

Interview 9/21/2026

Story by Troy Anderson

The Ditch Pickle

For Troy, the story of a 1972 Ski-Roule S-400 doesn't really begin in 1972. It begins with family, a farm, and winters when snowmobiles brought neighbors together.

Long before Troy was old enough to ride, snowmobiling was already part of his mother's family. His grandparents were avid riders. His grandfather made trails through the woods on their property, and on Sundays after church, he and Troy's grandmother would head out for a ride. They belonged to a local snowmobile club, and one of the club trails crossed their land.

Troy's grandmother once told him about a day when around 50 snowmobiles were lined up in front of the barn, with neighbors and friends gathered for a ride. It was before organized vintage rides and old-time snowmobile runs became popular. Back then, the machines weren't vintage. They were simply how people spent a winter afternoon.

Somewhere, Troy believes, there was even a photograph of all those snowmobiles lined up at the barn. Unfortunately, no one seems to know where that photograph ended up.

The love of snowmobiles carried into the next generation. Troy's mother had a Ski-Roule, while her only brother had a Ski-Doo so she would have someone to ride with. Years later, that connection to Ski-Roule would become much more important to Troy than anyone probably realized at the time.

Troy has plenty of his own childhood snowmobile memories. Growing up on the farm gave him what felt like an entire world to explore. There were about 200 acres, and only two fields were off limits.

“I thought I was king of the world,” Troy remembers. “I used to think I was the coolest kid.”

In his imagination, he wasn't simply riding around the farm. He was racing.

His dad had given him what probably sounded like a safe challenge: when you can start it, you can ride it.

Apparently, Dad underestimated just how determined his son could be. Troy figured out how to start it.

His dad soon realized his mistake. He had thought Troy might lose interest and forget about the whole thing. Instead, the opposite happened. Snowmobiles became something Troy never quite outgrew.

Those early machines weren't always easy. They required patience, mechanical ability and, sometimes, a willingness to be frustrated. But Troy believes starting with an old sled taught him something important. It made him appreciate newer equipment and taught him the value of taking care of what he owned and learning how things worked.

As Troy puts it, the hobby has become a cycle of “fixing, riding, repeat and going to confession afterwards.”

Years later, those childhood memories led Troy deeper into the history of Ski-Roule. He joined a group dedicated to the old Canadian snowmobiles and admits he learned far more about them than he ever expected to want to know.

And somewhere along the way, he heard a name he had never heard before: “Ditch Pickle.”

Someone used the nickname at a show, and Troy's first reaction was basically, “What?”

So he did what any curious collector would do. He went home and checked. Sure enough, the nickname had been used for the distinctive green Ski-Roule snowmobiles. Troy doesn't know who first coined the phrase, but somewhere along the way it stuck.

Today, Troy owns a 1972 Ski-Roule S-400 with a CCW engine, one of those unmistakable green, bubble-nosed machines.

But the old Ski-Roule represents considerably more than another vintage snowmobile in a collection. It connects Troy to Sunday rides through his grandparents' woods, a barn once surrounded by snowmobiles, his mother's Ski-Roule, and a little boy who looked across 200 acres of farmland and imagined he was a race driver.

All these years later, he's still riding. He's just old enough now to know that eventually he'll probably have to fix it again.