Representatives of Powell River Parks and Wilderness Society (PRPAWS) unveiled a new initiative last week designed to align businesses with the popular Sunshine Coast Trail (SCT).
Eagle Walz, PRPAWS president, and Emma Levez Larocque, a member of the board, along with Tara Chernoff, who has been working with the group, made a presentation on September 26 at a Powell River Chamber of Commerce luncheon about a passport for the trail.
The 180-kilometre SCT is Canada’s longest hut-to-hut trail, Walz said, and the number of people travelling to Powell River to hike the trail is rising. The SCT website receives up to 1,000 hits a week in the summer and there are many opportunities for the community to benefit from the trail, Walz explained.
The time is right to involve businesses, added Walz, because business owners can have a stake in the trail that benefits them. “We’re seeing a huge spike in visitations to the Sunshine Coast Trail,” Walz said. “We know we have to build on it in this community.”
There are 12 huts along the trail and businesses are being offered an opportunity to sponsor 12 sections of the trail that include each of the huts. Hikers purchase a passport at a business location or Tourism Powell River. As hikers complete sections of the trail, they take a picture of themselves at an identifiable location, such as in front of one of the huts, and they take their passport along with the picture into the business that sponsored that section of the trail. Hikers receive a stamp on their passport, each one with a different design. When hikers have received all 12 stamps, they take their passport to Tourism Powell River to receive a certificate of completion.
The passport is a borrowed idea from the Camino de Santiago Trail in Spain, which Levez Larocque hiked last spring with her husband. “You wouldn’t believe the people running around with these passports,” she said. “Restaurants would have these big signs saying ‘Get your Camino stamp here’ and they’d rush on over to go to that business. People get excited about this.”
Chernoff pointed out other world-class trails, such the Camino, the Tongariro in New Zealand and the Tasmanian Trail in Australia, all have one thing in common and that is that their communities completely embrace them. “They reap the benefits of all these people coming to their communities. We know that we’re looking for opportunities to build economic opportunities for our community and this is one.”
City of Powell River Mayor Dave Formosa announced during the luncheon that the city has made an offer on a vacant lot in Cranberry adjacent to Mowat Bay Park.
“Our motivation was to keep the Sunshine Coast Trail connected,” he said.
The lot, located on Waddington Avenue, is about 6.5 hectares and has a frontage of about 107 metres onto Powell Lake. According to a staff report, the property is often used by locals, without the owner’s authorization, as an extension of the adjacent city park. As well, previous owners allowed a right-of-way through the property for the SCT, but current owners denied access, which meant hikers had to find their way over three kilometres through Cranberry to connect to the trail.
City council directed staff at an in-camera committee-of-the-whole meeting in August to make an offer on the property. The $140,000 offer was accepted and during the October 3 council meeting, elected officials will be considering a recommendation to authorize staff to complete the purchase. Funds are coming from the land sale reserve fund.
