Arctic Cat buys Quebec’s Widescape stand-up snowmobile maker as $13 million debt forces sale

Montreal, Jan 7, 2026, 07:26 (EST)

• Arctic Cat said it acquired the Widescape name, intellectual property and existing inventory.
• Court filings cited by local media show Widescape carried more than C$13 million in debt, with public lenders among creditors.
• Montreal will send psychiatry residents on police patrols for street-level training, La Presse reported.

Arctic Cat said it has acquired the assets of Quebec-based Widescape, maker of the WS250 stand-up snowmobile, expanding the Minnesota company’s winter recreation portfolio.

The move lands as Arctic Cat tries to rebuild its product line under new owners and widen a dealer network that thinned during years of uncertainty for the brand, the company said.

For Quebec, the sale shifts a locally designed stand-up machine into U.S. control and caps a startup’s slide into court-supervised insolvency—a legal process for firms that cannot pay their bills.

In a statement on Tuesday, Arctic Cat said it bought the Widescape name, intellectual property and existing inventory and cited a $5,999 manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) for the WS250 in the United States. Darling called it “a very different winter recreational experience” that can “go places no other snowmobile can.” The company said the WS250 was first introduced in 2023 and uses a belt-driven continuously variable transmission (CVT), a common snowmobile drive system, paired with a 242cc four-stroke engine. Arctic Cat

A Quebec Superior Court judge approved the sale of most of Widescape’s assets to Arctic Cat the week before Christmas for a sum that was not made public, according to court documents cited by the Journal de Montréal. Widescape sold far fewer machines than it built and faced cost increases and “financing constraints,” its lawyers wrote in a filing. Le Journal de Montréal

Those filings put Widescape’s debts at more than C$13 million, including C$2.5 million owed to Scotiabank, C$3.4 million to Quebec’s economy ministry and Investissement Québec, C$1.2 million to the federal government and C$800,000 to Desjardins Capital régional et coopératif. Arctic Cat will take roughly 580 snowmobiles that Widescape had in stock in mid-December and aims to sell the WS250 before the winter season is “too advanced,” while many key components are made in Vietnam and India, the report said. Widescape was founded in 2018 and launched its flagship product in February 2022; inventor Alain Aubut first developed the stand-up concept in 1998 for his son Frédérik, later a co-inventor, and the company was later owned by Félix Gauthier, a former president of bicycle maker Devinci.

Arctic Cat competes with Polaris and BRP’s Ski-Doo in the North American snowmobile market, but stand-up models remain rare on dealer floors. With a lightweight machine and a lower price point than full-size sleds, the WS250 gives Arctic Cat a way to test demand from riders who want tighter, off-trail handling.

But Arctic Cat did not detail what support it will offer current WS250 owners, and the court filing shows Widescape’s inventory outpaced sales. If snowfall stays uneven and dealers keep inventories lean, Arctic Cat may struggle to justify new production, leaving public lenders and other creditors nursing losses.