Initiated in 1992 as a project to celebrate Canada’s 125th year, at more than 24,000 km, The Great Trail of Canada is the world’s longest network of multi-use recreational trails.
The Great Trail serves a wide variety of recreation and transportation uses, including walking, hiking, cycling, horseback riding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling…and even canoeing and kayaking!
Since its founding, the vision for The Great Trail has been to touch the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans, and to pass through every province and territory, linking over 1,000 communities….and all Canadians to one another.
Trails Run Through our Backyards
In British Columbia, The Great Trail runs nearly 1,700 kilometres from Victoria to the Rocky Mountains, through some of the most spectacular scenery in the world.
The Great Trail in British Columbia includes many retired railway corridors — ‘rail trails’ — which have been restored for recreational use. In south-central interior British Columbia the rail trails making up significant length of The Great Trail include the Kettle Valley Rail Trail, the Columbia and Western Rail Trail and the Great Northern Rail Trails.
These rail trails connect local residents with accessible health and fitness amenities, active transportation commuting options, and opportunities for increased tourism benefits; rail trails in particular are often the only safe options for those without a motor vehicle to travel between communities.
The Problem
In British Columbia, large sections of these historic rail trails are threatened by the unregulated use of motorized, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), dual sport bikes, motorcycles, automobiles, and 4x4s.
The use of motorized vehicles is slowly destroying trail surfaces. In addition, permits are being granted to logging companies so they can use rail trails for timber harvesting and other industrial purposes along the recreational corridor.
In August of 2019, there was a proposal to eliminate the “recreation trail” designation for 67 km of the rail trail between Castlegar and Fife near Christina Lake — this would be a significant loss for public recreation in Canada.
Our Efforts
For the past 20 years, local volunteers and groups like the BC Cycling Coalition have worked with the Trails Society of BC (Trails BC) to advocate for and secure funding for programs and activities to protect all trails in British Columbia for recreation and transportation uses.
Most notably, we support efforts to designate all rail trails along The Great Trail as an official ‘linear park’ (or greenway), in order to protect their cultural, historical and natural heritage to the full extent possible.
We recognize that ATVs and other recreational vehicles are used for transportation by those who cannot or choose not to drive motor vehicles on our roads. The BC Cycling Coalition intends to work with a broad coalition of stakeholders, including local community groups, industry and the provincial government, to help address these issues with solutions that do not involve the use of motorized vehicles on rail trails.