Backcountry snowmobiling is truly like nothing else. If you’ve never done it, I understand; but if you ever have the chance to go on a guided tour and get training from someone who really knows what they’re doing, I hope you take it. Why? Because it’s gorgeous and exhilarating, of course!
But if you’re already an enthusiast of the sport, and especially if you’re in North America, then you might already know about Cain’s Quest. Earlier this month in 2026, the extremely hardcore, 3,400-kilometer (around 2,112-ish miles, give or take) endurance race across the majority of the wilds of Labrador completed its 20th year. And while teams for this endurance race are normally made up of two racers, one team named Big Red Racing actually crossed the finish line with three, in a manner of speaking.
As the CBC reported, racer Jordan Anthony had last competed in Cain’s Quest with racing partner Ryan Conley in 2024. Both men are in their mid-30s, but unfortunately, only one of them was able to compete in the 2026 round on this corporeal plane. While they’d both been involved with the event on support crews prior to becoming a race team in 2024, Anthony sadly died in October 2024 from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Naturally, his friends and family still hold his memory close to their hearts; and in Conley’s case, that’s very literal. Throughout the 2026 Cain’s Quest race, Conley apparently kept a vial of his friend and former racing partner’s ashes tucked safely away within his warm layers, very close to his heart. When he and his new teammate, Matt Bennett, were able to cross the finish line at last, only then did he take the vial out and scatter those ashes, so Jordan Anthony could also cross the finish line he’d worked for and dreamed about.
Anthony’s mom, Shelley Brown, told the CBC that this gesture was difficult, but that it did bring some closure and that she found it “beautiful.” It’s a unique and special thing that they did, and a gift that only Conley could really give to his friend.
If you’ve lost someone, and particularly if you’ve carried some of their ashes with you on your own journey through life, you know exactly how deep those feelings and that meaning can go. We usually can’t control when those we love will leave our physical lives forever, but we can control how we remember them.
There are few ways more beautiful and meaningful than doing something like this. Our best to Big Red Racing and Anthony’s extended family and friends; we may never have met, but through the grace of humanity, he’s touched our lives anyway.
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