Connecting the dots along the Humber River
Humber Valley Multipurpose Trailway group wants to see ATV access between communities improved
CORNER BROOK — ATV use is growing all over the province and along with that many communities have enacted regulations that permit usage on approved routes within their boundaries.
Corner Brook has done it, Pasadena has done it and so has Deer Lake.
While those routes provide riders with a way to get to ATV trails in their areas, there is a missing link when it comes to getting from community to community.
“There’s no way to connect the dots,” said Shawn Leamon.
That’s something Leamon and a group of ATV riders would like to see changed.
The group wants a multipurpose recreational trail — for ATVS, bikes, walkers and hikers — created within the Humber Valley from Corner Brook to Deer Lake and all communities in between.
“We’ve got some of the best scenery in the world in the Humber Valley. We should be able to get out and enjoy it,” said Leamon, who lives in Little Rapids.
About two weeks ago, Leamon set up the Humber Valley Multipurpose Trailway Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/ groups/755410015130931, to get the conversation going.
Leamon said the effort has to be a regional one and he thinks the interest is there.
Expanding ATV linkages between Corner Brook and selected backcountry areas and local towns is already a recommendation in the Strategic Regional Tourism Plan report complete for the Corner Brook, Bay of Islands and Lower Humber region.
Leamon said the two biggest areas of disconnect for ATV travel are between Corner Brook and Steady Brook, and in the area of Little Rapids.
What’s being suggested is to have a trail running parallel to the Transcanada Highway along the Humber River between the city and Steady Brook, a multipurpose path like the one along Griffin Drive in Corner Brook and one that would have a divider to separate it from the highway. “That’s the hardest section,” he said. It would require some engineering, but Leamon says it can be done.
Once users reach Steady Brook, they can already travel along Marble Drive until they reach Little Rapids.
It’s there where ATV users are disconnected from everything, Leamon said. The groomed snowmobile network bypasses the town and there is no route that ATVS can be used on. It’s a provincial road and therefore ATV operation is illegal.
But that could change if the province is willing, and Leamon said it could even be a pilot project to test how it will work.
The suggestion the group plans to put to the province is to allow ATV use on the rest of Marble Drive to the underpass at Humber Village. From there, riders could continue under the highway and link up with the old TCH through Little Rapids on Bonnell Drive to Exit 11 at Humber Valley Resort, where riders would go back under the highway and then onto Boom Siding Road to continue into Pasadena.
Once in Pasadena, they can use the designated routes there and then pick up the railbed and go on to Deer Lake.
Newfoundland T’railway Council president Rick Noseworthy of Conception Bay South knows what Leamon means by disconnect between communities.
“That is the missing link. That is what keeps us awake as trail builders,” Noseworthy said.
He has come to Corner Brook on an ATV, only to have it trucked back to Deer Lake. There are ways to get around doing so by using woods roads in the area, but either way has no benefit to Pasadena from a tourism or economic perspective if the ATV traffic can’t get there.
The council supports the development of multiuse trails across the province’s railbed. Noseworthy said multipurpose is really the way to go in terms of accessing funding or getting a buy-in from everyone.
“The more people you can have on the trail the better it is for everyone,” he said.
“The answer is a dedicated trail,” he said, adding that geography sometimes doesn’t make that an easy feat.
He said he likes the idea of connecting Corner Brook and Steady Brook, but he doesn’t think it would be a simple process, or else it would have been done already.
The railbed was removed from that area when the divided highway was put in, so there is no existing trail to follow, and he has safety concerns with having a trail run along the side of the highway.
“It’s a long run to be interacting with traffic,” said Noseworthy.
Leamon says it can be done with a barrier in place so it’s safe for everyone.
“We realize there are problems around the river, but I don’t think they’re insurmountable,” said Leamon.