Quesnel residents are encouraged to drop by Spirit Centre on Oct. 26 to attend an open house to review the North Cariboo Trails Inventory and Master Plan.
The City of Quesnel has been working on the plan with input from stakeholders leading the way.
People are urged to review the plan before it’s finalized. The open house runs from 5 to 7 p.m.
Mayor Bob Simpson says the City got some funding from the Beetle Action Coalition, Northern Development Initiative Trust and the Cariboo Regional District through the northern directors and the city’s Economic Development budget.
“We’ve cobbled that money together and we’ve been working with a stakeholder group. We also had one community input session.”
The mayor says the intent of the process is two-fold.
One is to develop a comprehensive trail inventory, he says, adding it’s across the spectrum of uses.
“So that’s from the non-mechanized – hiking, running, horse and mountain bike – to the mechanized – ATVs, motocross bikes and quads.”
Simpson notes the inventory piece was about finding out how the trails are utilized.
“In some cases, you’ve got trails that are well managed for multiple uses. But there are some trails where there are some conflicts.”
He notes that has been mapped into the inventory to see where there are issues and where have some of those issues been resolved.
The mayor adds there are trails that are dedicated because of the particular group that has developed and managed those trails and they’re known to be dedicated.
“The ATV/snowmobile group has taken an old site around the Cottonwood House area. They have redeveloped it and put in some washrooms and picnic tables.”
Simpson says there are hundreds of kilometres of trails.
“We have a massive trail system, but unlike Williams Lake, it’s very under-developed and under-marketed. That’s what the Master Trails Strategy is all about.
“It asks where our priorities are to start to develop those trails and giving us the ability to turn that into our economic development tourism attraction, and doing the work to take full advantage of the trail systems that are available.”
Simpson says the consultants will be bringing the trails inventory and the master plan to the open house for more public input.