Nowell Senior - Community Builder
Nowell Senior is an avid outdoorsman, a lover of hiking and snowshoeing. For the past 20 years he has been a member of the Caledonia Ramblers Hiking Club. Prior to Nowell joining the Ramblers, the club only ran a summer hiking/backpacking schedule starting in April and ending with the snow in the fall. Nowell began organizing snowshoe trips and they became a hit. This led to scheduled trips every week throughout the winter period.
In 2005, Nowell put in an application to the provincial government on behalf of the Ramblers for a trail up and over the Driscoll Ridge from Highway 16. As it happened, residents of the Crescent Spur/Dome Creek area put in an application for an interpretive/nature trail into the old growth cedar forest starting for the same point on Highway 16.
The government combined the two applications and in 2006 permits for the trail were given to the Ramblers and work began. Nowell provided a vision of how the trail could serve others and provided outstanding leadership throughout the building of the trails.
In 2009, Nowell proposed the addition of the universal boardwalk to the Ancient Forest Trail to make it more accessible to all visitors while protecting the plants and ecosystem generally.
He led the cause by successfully applying for grants to contribute to the cost of the project.
Between 2006 and 2015, Nowell has made about 400 round trips (over 90,000 km) to the Ancient Forest and contributed more than 5,000 hours of work to see this project through, inspiring many others to become part of the vision of the new trail through his leadership and hands-on involvement throughout the building phases.
As one supporter stated: “He was there when the idea of the trail through the ancient cedars was conceived, when the first trail ribbon was tied to the first tree that marked where the trail would go, when the first board was carried up the new trail to form bridges over creeks, an when the first nail was hammered into the first plank of the Universal Boardwalk. He was a member of the small group that submitted a formal proposal to establish a new provincial park and he was there when the premier announced that a new provincial park was on its way.”
Nowell is being honoured as one of Prince George’s 2016 Citizens of the Year for his tireless efforts in bringing a new provincial park just an hour’s drive away from the city and for his continued involvement in an initiative to have The Ancient Forest declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.