TURNER — Cars lined the sides of Route 4 on Saturday and snowmobiles filled the lot of United Sports, which has hosted the Vintage Snowmobile show since 2003.

Owner Paul Bernier said he was surprised that so many sleds showed up for the swap-and-sell show because of the Friday storm, which made driving hazardous.

Among the many who braved the storm to attend the show were sledders from Quebec, Michigan, Vermont, Wisconsin, New York, New Hampshire and Maine.
Bernier said they were well over 125 sleds on the grounds.

Last year, as many as 1,000 people went through the Vintage snowmobile museum, Bernier said. The free museum houses about 300 sleds and 70 brands dating from 1947 to the late 1970s.

The collection has an early Eliason toboggan-type sled, but the museum’s sled is not as old as the one collector Wayne Campbell brought for the show. Campbell showed a machine that was used by the U.S. Army Air Corps on patrol in Presque Isle in World War II.

Campbell’s 1924 Eliason has a 2½-horsepower Johnson outboard motor and a Model T Ford radiator with bicycle sprockets and chains. It was one of the first snowmobiles made.

Bernier, whose wife Terri has Hodgkins lymphoma, pointed out what was happening in the building next door to the museum: a member of the Maine Lymphoma Foundation was screening people — with a simple cheek swab — who wanted to be tested as potential bone-marrow donors.

Terri Bernier said there are 8 million people registered in the “Be the Match” national register, but as of Saturday, they had not found a match for her. People can register online to be donors at BeTheMatch.org or call 1-800-627-7692.

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