Feature Article August 15, 2001
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Trails to literacyBy Bill BowickA key factor in the decision to move the Ontario Trails Council office from Georgetown to the village of Sharbot Lake, in Central Frontenac, was the assertion that Sharbot Lake was the center of a supportive trails community. Transportation, whether industrial or recreational, has always been important. The historic Frontenac road passes close to the west end of the lake, itself. The village is just off one of the earliest sections of the Trans Canada Highway. Sharbot Lake was a major railroad junction until the 1950s. The first section of abandoned railway converted to recreational use in Ontario was part of the K&P line just north of Sharbot Lake. The east-west line through Sharbot Lake, CPR's former Havelock sub-division, was one of Ontario's first sections of the Trans Canada Trail. Transportation corridors have done a lot to build the community. Is it surprising they are now helping to build individuals?
Proponents of trails often talk about their educational value. They usually mean that you can learn about nature or history by going out on a trail. In Central Frontenac, they have taken this educational potential to new lengths through the Trails to Literacy project. As one might expect, participants in the program are learning numeracy and literacy through natural and historical interpretive studies. They are also applying these skills to projects related to building, maintaining and supporting the trail. Program participants have built benches for people to rest near the trail. They have built bird feeders to be placed along the trail and they have created information plaques for the information of trail users. Participants have also become involved in administrative aspects of the project to learn about meeting minutes, in graphical displays of data and in handling cash. A great community project was the construction of a ginger-bread model of the old train station for a Christmas event. The people who did this learned about dimensions, measurement and scaling as well as all the skills you need to read and understand a recipe. There is now a community initiative to rebuild the train station for real. Will it succeed? No one knows! But if the project goes forward, it will be blessed with a few supporters a lot more skilled than they were. Trails to Literacy was funded by the National Literacy Secretariat as a pilot project. It was initiated by the North Frontenac Literacy Program and is now broadening out to other communities. One person who joined the program as part of an Ontario Works Community Placement wrote her story for the project newsletter "The Knapsack," and had it quoted in Provincial Parliament. It is a story of unqualified success - senior government support for a local initiative to benefit the community. But the greatest legacy is not the trail. It is an individual with knowledge, skill and pride they can take to another project.