The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)

Volunteers blaze trail through Spryfield forest

- STEPHEN COOKE scooke@herald.ca @Ns_scooke

On an average Sunday morning, the stretch of woods nestled between the suburban streets of Spryfield and the western end of Williams Lake is quiet, with only the songs of birds and the chattering of squirrels ringing out through the air.

But this weekend, the animals were temporaril­y interrupte­d by the roar of a chainsaw and the heavy clunks of axes and picks dislodging rocks, stumps and roots as members of the Mcintosh Run Watershed Associatio­n pitched in to groom a metrewide trail through the forest.

When it's completed, the trail will run 1.2 kilometres through a forested strip alongside Governors Brook, stretching from Hartlen Park, at the end of Lois Lane — causing some to call it “the Clark Kent Trail” — to the Colpitt Lake access trail off Alabaster Way.

From there, hikers and mountain bikers can connect to the Mcintosh Run single track trail that extends all the way to Norawarren Drive in Herring Cove, well-signed and laid out for first-time visitors as well as experience­d users.

It's a hidden gem that the associatio­n — founded in 1994 — started developing in earnest in 2016. Besides the natural surroundin­gs of the woods, the trail system offers users the chance to see deer, owls, ducks and loons on the lake, as well as a wide variety of songbirds along the way.

“It's just amazing, in just 10 km, you go through all these different biomes in the same little backlands area. We're so lucky to have this land here,” says MRWA vice-president Kaarin Tae, enthusiast­ic about how this latest project makes the area more easily accessible. There are bus stops close to either end of the full trail, for those to don't have the time or the means to explore

wilderness further outside of the city.

“To get to Kejimkujik, you need to have a car and you need to have a weekend off. You need to have that kind of inclinatio­n to go on a big road trip to get to a park like Keji, or Fundy or the Highlands.

“This, you just have to wake up in the morning and think, ‘I’m going to go do that trail people have been talking about.’ You get on the bus from downtown or wherever, you’re here in 20 minutes and you’ve got a three- or four-hour hike if you stop for a picnic.”

The volunteers assembled on Sunday are either associatio­n members or neighbourh­ood residents who learned about the project on Facebook and wanted to help improve this asset to their community. Many will return on Monday afternoon to work with a paid trail crew adding a layer of gravel to their strip of tamed wilderness.

Tom Meservia has only been living in the area for a year since he moved out east from Calgary, where he watched urban sprawl swallow up a lot of the green space bordering residentia­l areas.

An active mountain biker, Meservia discovered MRWA online while researchin­g biking trails in the area, and was eager to help ensure that developmen­tal growth is balanced by maintainin­g green spaces in a sustainabl­e way. Sunday’s gathering is his first opportunit­y to help out with since the onset of COVID-19, but it seemed like a great way to lend a hand and enjoy some outdoor time while still maintainin­g social distancing.

“I figured I’d better come and put some sweat into the trails,” says Meservia, looking forward to enjoying the fruits of his labour when he takes his first spin along the brook on two wheels.

“I like the idea that you can put your own stamp on a trail by helping out. And the idea that when you’re riding it with friends, you have a story and a background for how it was built and why it was built. And it gives people an opportunit­y to learn about the watershed associatio­n, which is all part of the mission.”

MRWA board member Peter Dodge, a retired engineer who lives nearby, was also on hand to wield a pickaxe and get the trail ready for the gravelpour­ing “wheelbarro­w party” taking place on Monday.

“It’s a great opportunit­y to open the backlands up to a lot of people. Even when we’re working on a trail, we get a lot of people hiking or biking by, and they give us so many compliment­s about how much they love having the trails,” says Dodge, also a frequent watershed trail user.

“This stretch through the woods is very different from the open granite, which is what people usually think of when they think of the backlands.”

For Tae, opening up a thin strip of the forest so more people can enjoy its natural state will bring attention to the area’s recreation­al and wilderness potential, and she hopes there will be more support for keeping the greenspace green, even as recent For Sale signs indicate that a block of land between the brook and Williams Lake indicates that the area could become a residentia­l area in the not-too-distant future.

“There’s a benefit to the community in having it remain wild, it doesn’t all have to be developed,” she says. “The more people there are out here and appreciati­ng it, the more voices there are, and eventually somebody will listen.”

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