THUNDER BAY — With a 45-kilometre stretch already open, a group working on a new network of recreational, non-motorized trails in the Thunder Bay region is doing some fine-tuning and planning for the next stages.
The Northwestern Ontario Recreational Trails Association has now applied to the Ministry of Natural Resources for a work permit to establish the Pigeon River Hiking Trail.
The 60-kilometre route would run from the Kakabeka Falls area to the existing Trans Canada Trail near the Ontario/Minnesota border, via Marks, Strange, Fraleigh and Devon Townships.
There's no firm timeline for the project yet, but area residents will be provided with more information at an open house scheduled for Aug. 13 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Nolalu Community Centre.
"We're doing this to bring it to the local residents...just so they can see what's going on and get the real facts behind what we're proposing. We've heard a lot of inaccurate stuff out there," said Len Day, president of NWORTA.
"We want to get this information out and give them an opportunity to provide feedback to us."
He explained that when plans for the trails were first announced "We had groups claiming that the trail was going to be exclusive to hiking only, we're taking over all the trails, and all this stuff. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"These trails are on Crown land, and with that, they are open to the public, but we maintain that these are not trails that are going to be conducive to ATVs or snowmobiles or horseback or dogsledding. They are designed more for the hiking community and those types of recreational users."
The Kakabeka-to-border trail would be the third phase of an ambitious five-part plan for a network of 500 kilometres of hiking trails between Nipigon and Atikokan.
Phase One is the Shabaqua Trail between Kakabeka and Shabaqua, most of which has been completed.
But Day said changes are being proposed for remaining portions in order to minimize or eliminate the sharing of some township roadways and snowmobile trails.
Funding for this has been approved by Trans Canada Trail, the organization supporting the development of a national trail network.
"One of the mandates is to build trails, going forward, to make them as safe as possible, trying to mitigate shared road use and shared motorized-trail use. That's the intent, and the funding is there to do that, so we're just taking advantage of it," Day said Wednesday.
Trans Canada Trail is also assisting NWORTA with Phase Two, a trail that would go from the outskirts of Thunder Bay to Kakabeka.
Day said his group approached the City of Thunder Bay to extend the existing Trans Canada Trail on Broadway Avenue, which essentially terminates at Fort William Historical Park.
"We submitted to the city to extend that trail from FWHP about three kilometres west to the 25th Side Road, along the north easement of Broadway. And we just received that approval. We're just going through the final details, having engineering and staff go look at where we're going to build the trail."
He said the city's Community Economic Development Commission has agreed to help pay for the trail extension.
"That will become the trailhead, if you will, of our proposed trail going west to Kakabeka Falls."
Although the full 500-km network is years from being completed, Day said funding from Trans Canada Trail provides a significant boost.
"It gives us the opportunity to hire a contractor and construct trails for us. Failing that, we would get our very dedicated and very committed volunteers to go in. . . It is arduous work, and can be taxing on the volunteers, so we don't want to burn them out.
Anywhere we can take advantage of funding that's available, we're going to do that."
More information on the NWORTA's plans is available on its website.
