2050 County 41 NW, Backus, Minnesota
Every right-of-way has a low spot: the stretch of muskeg, beaver flowage, or flooded forest where the pickups stop and the schedule stalls. The Swamp Rider drives in, floats across open water, climbs out the far bank, and carries your crew and gear at close to wetland-legal ground pressure.
A corridor can be 90% drivable, but the stretch that dips into a tamarack swamp or floods at spring breakup is exactly where the riser pole, the splice vault, or the integrity dig sits.
So crews stage at the tree line and wait: for mats to be trucked in and laid, for the ground to freeze, for the water to drop. The Swamp Rider turns “wait for the window” into “drive in and start today.”
The first-in access and assessment vehicle that pairs with your bucket trucks, digger derricks, and heavy iron. It gets the crew, the tools, and the eyes on the problem when nothing else can reach it.
ROW patrol, integrity and leak surveys, and cathodic-protection checks across muskeg and flooded crossings, plus staking the dig site ahead of the mats and iron.
Reach buried cable, pad-mounts, and structures in wet forested ROW. Haul the locator, splice gear, generator, and pump to the low spot. The heated cab lets crews splice through winter.
First-in damage assessment across flooded distribution ROW: reach the broken structure, confirm scope, and start ground-level repairs before the bucket truck can stage.
Get techs, a TDR, and splice kits to pedestals and vaults that flood seasonally, without laying a mat road or driving the long way around.
Shuttle a two-person crew and up to ~1,500 lb of gear to sites a pickup can't reach, and back out again, in a single trip, in any season.
Control points, wetland soil and water sampling, and timber cruising across standing water and soft ground, on a stable platform with a light footprint.
Beaver pond across the corridor? Flooded creek between you and the structure? The sealed hull floats and the 54-inch paddle tires propel it across open water, then climb a 35° bank out the far side. No ramp, no boat, no ten-mile detour. The same machine that swam the channel keeps driving up the two-track to the job.
Three short clips from the field, showing the Swamp Rider working through water and mud, flexing over rock, and covering ground that stops everything else.
Here the Swamp Rider crosses a flooded, muddy low spot under its own power, the kind that strands a pickup or side-by-side. The sealed composite hull keeps it buoyant while the 54-inch paddle tires pull it through standing water and deep muck, putting a crew and their gear on the far bank without a winch line or a detour.
Climbing this rock pile, the front and rear sections flex independently so every tire stays loaded and in contact. That articulating chassis keeps the machine driving forward over boulders, ruts, and downed timber instead of lifting a wheel and losing drive, which is what it takes to follow a right-of-way across broken ground.
Same machine, same day, moving from hard-pack two-track into soft mud and bog without slowing down. Aggressive paddle tread and low ground pressure spread the weight and keep it pulling as the surface changes by the yard, so conditions on a job site stop dictating whether the crew can get in.
Two-seat, diesel, with a fully enclosed heated cab: a work platform, not a fair-weather toy. The 54-inch paddle tires spread its weight to near wetland-legal ground pressure, the steel bed hauls over 1,500 lb, and it floats with 1,100 lb aboard.
A factory-mounted WARN Axon 35 winch comes standard: 3,500 lb pull, IP68 fully waterproof.
| Engine | Diesel24.8 hp · 71.5 Nm torque |
| Fuel use | 0.5–1.3 GPHall-day range on a tank |
| Top speed (land) | 20 mph 32 km/h |
| Top speed (water) | 3 mph paddle-tire propulsion |
| Grade limit | 35° climbs steep cut banks |
| Ground clearance | 19 in 1.57 ft |
| Tires | 54 in paddle tread, low ground pressure |
| Crew | 2 enclosed, heated cab |
| Payload (land) | 1,550 lb 700 kg in the bed |
| Payload (afloat) | 1,100 lb 500 kg, fully floating |
| Footprint | 12.5 × 7.7 ft trailers behind a 3/4-ton |
| Winch | WARN 3,500 lb Axon 35, IP68 waterproof |
In a wetland right-of-way, the damage you do getting in is something you pay to undo. Deep ruts sever the water-flow paths a wetland depends on and trigger reclamation, revegetation, and agency scrutiny under Nationwide Permit 12 and Section 404.
The Swamp Rider's paddle tires and light footprint keep it close to wetland-legal ground pressure. That means far less rutting, far less restoration exposure, and a credible answer when the landowner or regulator asks how you plan to get in.
When spring load restrictions close the haul roads and breakup turns the ground to soup, the conventional fleet is parked, but the work is still due. The Swamp Rider's low ground pressure and enclosed heated cab keep a crew moving through the shoulder seasons and into winter, in the exact window when nothing else can get down the road.
Have a corridor in mind? Get a quote →
A specialty amphibious rig sits idle most of the year. Rent it for the wet-season push or the one swamp crossing and keep your capital working.
We handle service, winter storage, and the depreciation on a niche machine with a thin resale market. You get it fueled and ready.
Make a wet, remote job biddable without committing to a purchase: a clean, jobs-costable line item per project.
Considering one for your own fleet? Run ours on a real job first and see how it performs on your ground.
We trailer it from our Backus yard to your access point, lease gate, or the end of the last gravel road, and pick it up when the job wraps. Project and seasonal rates, certificates of insurance, and operator orientation, handled the way contractors expect.
The region's only official Swamp Rider rental fleet, maintained in-house by the same shop that services our CAT and Wacker Neuson equipment. Two units available, so you can run a pair for a crew. Tell us your corridor.
Far less than anything else that can reach the same ground. The paddle tires and light weight keep it near the low-single-digit psi that fragile wetland soil will bear, versus 60–115 psi for a loaded truck. It's low-impact, not no-impact; we'll talk through your specific ground.
Two in the enclosed cab, with about 1,550 lb in the bed on land and 1,100 lb while floating. That's crew-and-gear scale: tools, locators, pumps, generators, splice kits. For setting poles or moving pipe joints, pair it with your heavy equipment; the Swamp Rider gets you and the gear to the work.
Yes. The sealed hull floats with up to 1,100 lb aboard, and the paddle tires propel it across open water at about 3 mph. It launches and exits under its own power and climbs a 35° bank out the far side. No ramp or trailer needed at the water.
We deliver and pick up throughout northern Minnesota. It trailers behind a 3/4-ton truck, so we stage it at your access point and it drives or swims in from there. It's a roughly 20 mph machine, built for the corridor, not the highway.
That's its best season. The enclosed heated cab and diesel engine are made for cold, and the low ground pressure keeps it working when frost laws have parked the trucks. Travel over ice always requires verified conditions, so tell us your route and we'll advise.
Project and seasonal rates, certificates of insurance, operator orientation, and delivery are all standard. Call us with your scope and timeline and we'll put together terms that fit the job.
Tell us the corridor, the season, and what you're hauling, and we'll tell you straight whether the Swamp Rider is the right tool, and have one trailered and ready when you are.
(218) 947-3353Beyond the right-of-way, the Swamp Rider also serves guides, outfitters, waterfowl hunters, and remote-cabin owners across northern Minnesota. Ask us about recreational rentals. BCI Rentals carries a full line of construction and outdoor equipment rentals, from compact track loaders and telehandlers to generators and ground heaters, serving Backus, Brainerd, Bemidji, and all of Northern Minnesota. Learn more about us.