For the week of April 13, 2026.
On April 16, 1907, Joseph-Armand Bombardier was born in Valcourt, Quebec. He went on to become one of the best-known inventors in Québécois and Canadian history. His creations included the Ski-Doo®* snowmobile, which made winter travel safer and easier.
Bombardier grew up on a farm in Valcourt as the oldest of eight siblings. His parents, Alfred Bombardier and Anna Gravel, were farmers-turned-storekeepers. During long winters in the relative isolation of his rural community, he spent endless hours learning how machines worked. He tinkered, took them apart, and then put them back together again. By age 13, he was building small mechanical toys for friends and family. Two years later, in 1922 he invented his first snowmobile. It consisted of two sleds, adapted to support a Ford Model T engine and a wooden propeller.
In 1924 Bombardier moved to Montréal for two years of training as a mechanic’s apprentice. At night, he took electrical and mechanical engineering courses provided by the Ford Motor Company. He returned to Valcourt in 1926 and married Yvonne Labrecque, with whom he would have six children. Bombardier spent summers fixing farm equipment at his workshop and winters redesigning his snowmobile. He added a continuous band of treads, turned by the wheels in a closed loop (known as caterpillar tracks). This better distributed the weight but proved hard to steer and lost traction in deep snow. He had not solved this design problem by 1934, when his youngest son became seriously ill and died when the family was unable to drive through deep snow on unplowed roads to a hospital. The tragedy led Bombardier to redouble his efforts.
In 1937 he received a patent for “auto-chenilles pour la neige.” This snowmobile design featured an inventive cogged gear wheel system with belted tracks that created better balance and traction. Bombardier immediately converted his workshop into a factory and put a new sign above the door: “L’Auto-Neige Bombardier.” Between 1937 and 1963, this company manufactured more than 13,000 snowmobiles for the Quebec market. The B7 model (“B” for Bombardier and “7” for seven passengers) was particularly popular among rural residents. During the Second World War (1939–1945), production expanded to include heavy-duty snowmobiles for the Canadian military.
After the war, winter road conditions improved in rural Quebec, reducing demand for the utilitarian B7. In response, Bombardier began development of a cheaper, more manoeuvrable, single-rider recreational vehicle marketed as the Ski-Doo® snowmobile. Production began in 1959, and over the next few years the Ski-Doo® snowmobile gained popularity as a new means of wintertime leisure and transportation.
After Bombardier died in 1964, the company continued to grow under the leadership of his son Germain Bombardier, his son-in-law Laurent Beaudoin, and later Beaudoin’s son Pierre. By the turn of the 21st century the Bombardier company had expanded to become a global manufacturer of rail and aerospace transportation.
*Ski-Doo is a trademark of BRP
