The Legend of Gyro-Trac

The Gyro-Trac Legend from Gyro-Trac Corporation on Vimeo.

Gyro-Trac’s History Is An Extraordinary, Evolutionary Tale. It’s A Story Of Determination, Innovation, And The Application Of Brilliant Engineering.

The Gyro-Trac Legend begins with the story of two brothers. Over 20 years ago the founders of Gyro-Trac, Daniel Gaudreault and his brother Guy, were land clearing contractors in northern Canada. During remote power line development, hydroelectric companies hired these land clearing masters to cut mile after endless mile of power line corridors through some of the most unforgiving and desolate terrains on earth–literally, in the middle of nowhere. Heavy equipment, fuel, spare parts, supplies and survival gear all had to be hauled across hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles of northern wilderness. Many times, to get to those remote sites, they would have to engineer and build roads and passages on the spot, as they traveled. Amazingly some those bridges were constructed of ice–the only option available to reach some of their most isolated destinations. They had to take everything in with them and get the job done as fast and as efficiently as possible. Determination and innovation became a way of daily life.

As hearty and industrious as these young men were, they were working for private companies and budgets were tight. They had to be competitive. The bulky, fuel-guzzling bulldozers that traditionally dominated this type of work were heavy and severely damaged soil structures, causing erosion and habitat destruction problems. After pushing down and tearing up all the trees, the bulldozers left tons of mangled debris behind that had to be dealt with. Environmental regulations required them to leave the sites as clean and undisturbed as possible. So as undesirable as it may have been, they’d burn the waste–there was little else to do.

Daniel and Guy knew that there had to be a more efficient way of clearing land that was environmentally friendly as well. This is where determination and innovation met brilliant engineering–in the middle of the woods. They came up with a revolutionary idea to develop a low-ground-press, lightweight, easy-to-transport, fuel-efficient mulching machine that could handle rough terrain, reduce huge volumes of trees and vegetation to environmentally desirable bio-mass, and be dependable to operate, easy to maintain in the field and, of course, not cost too much. Obviously, this was no small undertaking In the face of overwhelming criticism and improbable odds, the Gaudreault brothers nevertheless decided that if they build an ice bridge wherever they needed it, they could build a machine like this. Thus, Gyro-Trac was born in the woods. After more years of determined innovation and even more brilliant engineering, Gyro-Trac grew up in the woods.