Feature Article September 2, 2004
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Ontario Trails Council: promoting recreation, tourism, and healthy living by Jeff Green
Bev McCarthy, the new President
of the Ontario Trails Council (OTC), paid a visit to the OTC headquarters in Sharbot Lake last week.
Bev McCarthy is a long-time trail user, and joined the OTC board in 2001. Her involvement deepened when she became involved in the development of the Trillium trail network, leading to her becoming President this year. For her, trails represent an opportunity to promote active living, which is something she does herself through mountain biking, skiing, canoeing, and kayaking.
McCarthy, who lives in Brampton, took the opportunity during her visit to walk some of the local trails, including the Meisel Woods Trail near Crow Lake.
In the past few years the OTC has shifted focus somewhat, from being the main advocate of the Trans-Canada Trail network in Ontario, to promoting the Trillium Trail network, a diverse network of urban and rural trails throughout the province.
Promoting trails to the Ontario government involves communicating with several ministries, ranging from the Natural Resources and the Environment to Urban Affairs and Tourism.
Recently we have made headway with the Minister of Tourism Jim Bradley, a trail user himself, who has recognised the role trails can play within the tourism industry and the life of the province as a whole. There is now talk of a trails strategy for Ontario, and it is our role to keep them from forgetting about trails and the role of the Ontario Trails Council, Bev McCarthy said in an interview at the OTC office.
The OTC does not manage any trails themselves. Rather they represent all types of trail users: snowmobilers, ATVers, skiers and dog sledders, equestrians and cylists, hikers and birdwatchers, etc, according to their promotional materials, and they count among members private individuals and larger groups such as the Ontario Federation of Snowmobilers.
Such a diverse group of interests sometimes leads to conflicts, but as former OTC Executive Director Bill Bowick puts it, We might be the only group that the hikers and the ATVers will sit down with, to work out their issues.
In terms of economic spinoff, an OTC pamphlet outlines how the ATV and Snowmobile tourism impacts outstrip all others, and recent initiatives by the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance (EOTA) are attempting to further that. While visiting the area Bev McCarthy scheduled a meeting with EOTAs Cindy Cassidy, an advocate of ATV tourism.
However, Bev McCarthy points out that there are other possible economic benefits from trails. In other places such as Quebec, where they have put a lot of work into developing a network of mountain biking trails, that sport has become huge, bringing people, and money, to communities adjacent to the trails.
McCarthy is enthusiastic about the future of trails in Ontario, and the OTC continues to be determined to promote the diverse network of trails, trail associations and user groups to the provincial government and the population as a whole
