A passport for the Sunshine Coast Trail (SCT), featuring 12 huts along the 180-kilometre route, is being launched this month, just in time for Christmas.
The passport is designed to raise awareness about the huts and encourage people, locally and from outside of Powell River, to explore more of the trail. In the past three years nine of the 12 huts have been built by Powell River Parks and Wilderness Society (PRPAWS) with the help of dozens of volunteers, including groups like Powell River ATV Club, Rotary Club of Powell River and the BOMB (Blood Old Men’s Brigade) Squad. The huts were made possible by funding from the Island Coastal Economic Trust (ICET), BC Transmission Corporation, Union of BC Municipalities and numerous smaller donations, plus matching funds in the form of thousands of hours of volunteer labour.
“The huts are positioned in intervals along the trail so that someone could conceivably hike from hut to hut without having to carry a tent,” said Eagle Walz, PRPAWS president. “As a result the Sunshine Coast Trail is now the longest hut-to-hut hiking trail in Canada.”
Within the past year at least 500 to 600 people have visited Powell River to hike the SCT. The trail is Powell River’s number one tourism asset, according to Tourism Powell River.
Although some of the huts are easier to access, all of them are unique and worth visiting. Their locations vary from mountaintops with a 360-degree view (Tin Hat Mountain) to quiet forest lakesides with great swimming (Elk Lake) to lowland lakeshores (Rainy Day Lake). Making these destinations the goal of a day or overnight trip will allow people to experience the best of wilderness backcountry Powell River has to offer.
The passports encourage hikers to visit all the huts because they get a unique art stamp after visiting each one. Once people have all 12 stamps in their passports, they can receive certificates of completion, an accomplishment that comes with substantial bragging rights.
“This is a difficult trail to complete,” Walz said, and he should know. He, Scott Glaspey and a handful of friends who are also outdoor enthusiasts started building it more than 20 years ago. It began when Walz noticed a cutblock along the side of the road when he was on his way home from work one day. At that time there were only a half dozen recreation trails in the area and there were very few people who went out hiking. Walz realized that a lot of the big trees in the area were being cut down and that people, including himself, didn’t know what was happening in the backcountry. He and Glaspey agreed that the way to get people interested in helping to save what was left of the big trees was to get people out to see them, and to make them care about what was in their own backyard. “And that’s how the Sunshine Coast Trail came to be.” Since then hundreds of people have been involved in helping to build and maintain the trail, and more recently the huts.
“World-class trails around the globe may vary in distance, difficulty level, location and even amenities, but they all have one thing in common,” said Walz. “They have the full support of their communities. Getting businesses involved is a very important piece of the puzzle at this point. We’re hoping the passport will demonstrate to the community the economic benefits the SCT is bringing to the Powell River area on a regular basis.”
Twelve local businesses/organizations have partnered with PRPAWS on the passport. Their participation is vital to the success of the project, said Walz. “We are excited because we think that having the passports in these visible locations around town will help to raise the profile of the trail locally, and encourage people of all ages who have never ventured out on the trail to try visiting one or two of the huts. They might find they like it so much that they want to explore further afield and check out more of the Sunshine Coast Trail.”
Karen Skadsheim is the self-described instigator of Townsite Brewing Ltd., one of the sponsoring businesses. “The Sunshine Coast Trail is a huge part of Powell River and we’re really proud of it,” she said. “In fact, we named one of our beers after Tin Hat Mountain and featured the hut on the label, so it seemed a total natural for us to be involved in this.
“We recognize that tourism is a big part of the community, as well as our business; we get lots of tourists through our door in the summer, so it’s a win, win, win.”
Passport stamp locations will be identified by a decal that will be visible on the door or window at each business/organization. They include: The Lund Hotel, Terracentric Coastal Adventures, The Boardwalk Restaurant, Shinglemill Pub & Bistro, Outdoor Learning Centre—School District 47 (which will be stamped at Tourism Powell River), Edie Rae’s Café, Townsite Brewing, Savoury Bight, RE/MAX Powell River, Canadian Tire, Powell River Recreation Complex and Footprint Nature Explorations. First Credit Union has also been very supportive of the project, making a donation that covered the majority of the passport production costs, meaning that almost all the funds raised from the sponsorships and passport sales can go to the maintenance and improvement of the trail.
To purchase passports people can visit participating businesses or Tourism Powell River. PRPAWS will also be selling passports at its Christmas table at Powell River Town Centre Mall from 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday, December 7 and 14. For more information about the passport and the trail, readers can visit the trail's website.
How the SCT passport works
1) Hikers purchase a passport for $5 from Tourism Powell River, or one of the participating businesses.
2) They then hike to one of the huts along the trail and take a photo of themselves with the hut in the background.
3) They then take the photo to the corresponding business (this is detailed in the passport), and collect one of 12 unique stamps for their passport. Each participating business has its own unique stamp.
4) When all 12 stamps have been collected, they visit Tourism Powell River for their completion stamp and certificate, as well as have their name entered into a draw for some fabulous prizes.
