Inside the Manitouwadge ATV Jamboree: A Northern Ontario Trail-Riding Weekend

Somewhere north of the Trans-Canada, past the point where your phone gives up and the pines close in around the highway, there's a town of about two thousand people that throws one of the best parties in Ontario. You just need an ATV to get to most of it.

This July, I flew into the Sault, pointed a rental car up Highway 17, and drove one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the country—Lake Superior on my left shoulder from Batchawana Bay to Wawa, with a stop at Old Woman Bay that I'd have stretched into a full afternoon if I didn't have somewhere to be. Where I had to be was Manitouwadge, for the 10th Annual ATV Jamboree. Sixty-seven machines. A hundred riders. Seventy percent of them, like me, from out of town.

Nobody ends up in Manitouwadge by accident. You come here on purpose. And that, it turns out, is the whole magic of the thing.

The Fastest Friendships in Ontario

Here's what nobody tells you about trail riding: it's a social sport disguised as a solo one. You show up at the morning staging area knowing nobody. By the first poker-run checkpoint, you know everybody.

I've been trying to figure out why it happens so fast, and the closest comparison I can make is a movie theatre. A hundred strangers sharing the same story at the same time—except here, the story has mud in it, and you're all characters. When someone buried their machine to the axles in a mud hole, a dozen people I'd met four hours earlier turned into a pit crew, and the recovery got a bigger cheer than most playoff goals. When Jennifer from Sudbury snapped an axle, she wasn't stranded—she was surrounded. She spent the banquet that evening telling the story like it was the best part of her weekend. Honestly, it might have been.

That's the thing the Jamboree sells that no brochure can: you arrive as traffic, and you leave as a crew.

I should know—I got adopted by one. The team from Back Country Motorsports in Wawa took me in for the ride day and put me in the passenger seat of their green Kawasaki H2, a supercharged monster that shares its engine family with the world's fastest production motorcycle and announces every acceleration with a whistle that never once stopped being delightful. It looked too wide for the trails. It wasn't. Greg Robinson piloted it through everything the backcountry offered like he'd been born in it—because, more or less, he was.

Throttle and Silence on the Trail

The riding itself swings between two feelings that shouldn't fit together, and somehow do.

There's the adrenaline: powering through boreal forest so dense the GPS shrugs, dropping down sand hills in an old quarry that look twice as steep from the top, driving straight into a shallow river with the spray coming over the hood, and crossing a wooden bridge over rapids while the whole convoy hollers "Manitouwadge!" at the treetops.

And then there's the silence. At one stop, everyone shut their engines off near a waterfall, and a hundred people went quiet at the same time. No cell signal. No schedule. Just water, rock, and forest running unbroken to the horizon. Riders gathered on a sandbar, helmets off, faces up at the sun. That's the moment that stays with you—not the loudest one, the stillest one. All weekend, locals kept looking at my face during those stops and asking the same question: "So when are you moving up?"

Who Actually Keeps the Wilderness Open

There's a version of this story where a bunch of machines tearing through the forest is the villain. Spend a weekend in Manitouwadge, and you'll understand how backwards that is.

These trails exist because people like Dennis—the trail coordinator, ten years into the job—build them, maintain them, and treat access to the wilderness as something you earn by taking care of it. The riding community here operates like stewards, because they are: stay on the trail, pack out what you pack in, leave the crossing better than you found it. The wilderness isn't something the Jamboree uses. It's something the Jamboree looks after, so it can keep sharing it.

Late in the ride, we passed through a recent clear-cut, and I watched a few out-of-town faces do the reflexive wince. Here's the context the wince is missing: forestry is still a backbone industry across Northern Ontario, and the modern version of it looks a lot more like farming than felling. Harvested areas are replanted and regenerated—it's the law on Ontario's Crown forests—and the region remains part of one of the largest forest expanses anywhere on Earth. The cut we crossed will be green again, the way the green stretches around it once were cuts. The people of Manitouwadge don't see a scar there. They see a field between harvests, in a place where the forest is both livelihood and backyard—and they take care of it like it's both.

Manitouwadge: A Town That Shows Up

Back in town, the Jamboree becomes what it really is underneath the mud: a community of two thousand throwing a party for everyone who made the trip. Lunch at the community hall. A prize table stacked by local sponsors. An evening banquet with a cake marking ten years, organized by people like Karen Robinson of the local economic development office, who can tell you exactly what a weekend like this means to a town this size—and whose pride in it is contagious.

Small towns across the North will recognize everything about this: the volunteer hours, the borrowed trailers, the way the whole place leans in. Manitouwadge isn't performing for visitors. It's showing you what it already is, and inviting you to belong to it for a weekend.

On the drive home down the Superior coast—better views in that direction, somehow—I kept coming back to one thought. Ten years in, the Manitouwadge ATV Jamboree isn't really about the machines. It's about a town that opens its trails, its hall, and its whole weekend to anyone willing to make the trip—and a wilderness that's still wild precisely because the people who love it loudest also take care of it best.

They're coming back next year. So am I.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Manitouwadge ATV Jamboree?

 The Manitouwadge ATV Jamboree is an annual organized ATV and side-by-side (UTV) trail-riding event held in Manitouwadge, Ontario, Canada. It combines guided backcountry trail rides—including river crossings, sand hills, and a poker run—with community events like a banquet, prize draws, and meals at the community hall. The 2026 event marked its 10th anniversary, drawing 67 machines and roughly 100 participants, about 70% of them from out of town.

Where is Manitouwadge, Ontario? 

Manitouwadge is a township of about 2,000 people in Northern Ontario, north of Lake Superior between Marathon and White River, roughly a 4-hour drive from Thunder Bay and about 5 hours northwest of Sault Ste. Marie via the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 17) and Highway 614.

When does the Manitouwadge ATV Jamboree take place? 

The Jamboree is held annually in mid-July. The 2026 edition ran July 17–19, with the main ride day on the Saturday. Check with the Manitouwadge Economic Development office or the event's social channels for the confirmed 2027 dates.

Do I need my own ATV or side-by-side to participate?

 Most participants trailer in their own machines, but regional dealers such as Back Country Motorsports in Wawa support the event, and some riders arrange machines or seats with local crews. Contact the organizers ahead of time if you don't have your own vehicle.

Is the Manitouwadge ATV Jamboree suitable for beginners? 

Yes. Rides are done as a group with experienced trail coordinators, and the community is famously quick to help—if a machine gets stuck or breaks down, other riders assist with recovery. First-time attendees regularly ride alongside veterans of all ten events.

Is ATV riding in Northern Ontario environmentally responsible? 

Organized events like the Jamboree operate on maintained trail networks built and cared for by local volunteers and trail coordinators. Riders stay on designated routes and follow pack-in, pack-out practices. The surrounding working forest is managed under Ontario's sustainable forestry rules, which require harvested Crown land to be regenerated.

How do I get to Manitouwadge? 

Most visitors fly into Thunder Bay or Sault Ste. Marie and drive. From Sault Ste. Marie, the route follows the Trans-Canada Highway along the Lake Superior coast through Batchawana Bay and Wawa—one of Canada's most scenic drives—before turning north to Manitouwadge on Highway 614.

Where can I stay during the Jamboree? 

Manitouwadge has limited local accommodations that fill quickly during the event—the Jamboree effectively books out the town. Reserve early, or consider staying in nearby Marathon and driving in. The organizers can advise on camping and billeting options.

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