Ontario Trail News - Trail Wise - This week's round up of Ontario recreational trail news and events.

 

Ontario Trails Council - a provincial charity working for the development, use, management and preservation of trails and trail based activity. Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

ONTARIO TRAILS COUNCIL NEWSLETTER - March 23, 2026 • National Trail Conference Go Fund Us - Send 10 Ontario Reps to Winnipeg! • • Winter Activity on Ontario Trails • Trail Projects • Updates • Member Services • Ontario Trails Council is a charity, led by a volunteer board of directors, that promotes the use, management, development, and preservation of trails and trail-based activities in Ontario.  Please consider supporting us through a donation or a membership. Thanks.   TOP TRAIL NEWS March 10, 2026  PRESS RELEASE ON ADJUSTMENT OF CONSERVATION AUTHORITIES - ONTARIO December 21, 2025  A RESPONSE TO CONSERVATION AUTHORITY AMALGAMATION BY ONTARIO TRAILS COUNCIL   Measuring What Matters: Rethinking Impact Evaluation - CICP-PCPOB - Carleton University Carleton University In Canada's charitable sector, “impact” has become a buzzword. It is ... Imagine Canada's 2018 State of Evaluation report. The question, then ...   New study crowns Barrie as a top city in the country to live in Canada CTV News ... Ontario. Barrie is a year-round destination with beaches, ski slopes, hiking trails and cycling routes. Tourism Barrie says it has some advantages ...   Why millions escape to Muskoka—Canada's 'cottage country'—every summer National Geographic The hiking trail at Sugarbush Hill Maple Farm leads visitors through ... Parks Canada offers guided hikes through the park, as well as a ...   Blue Mountain night skiing to wrap up for season - CTV News CTV News Closer to Barrie, Horseshoe Valley Resort is still operating at near-full capacity, with the resort reporting that trails are still in 'good' ...   Algonquin Joins Driftwood, Killarney, Sandbanks, and Esker Lakes in Ontario for Spring and ... Travel And Tour World The park is famous for the 80-kilometer La Cloche-Silhouette Trail, one of Ontario's most iconic hiking trails. The George Lake Campground ...   Winter Camping in the Spring Thaw - Paddle and Portage Paddle and Portage Editor's Note: Emily Morrison is a 30-year-old from Ontario, Canada. An avid camper, paddler, and winter camper, she spends much of her free time ...   You may be able to bring your own booze to outdoor events in Ontario this year - blogTO blogTO Forget sneaking drinks into events — the Ford government is about to make it totally legal to bring your own booze to festivities in Ontario.   New rules could soon be coming for e-bike riders - Toronto Life Toronto Life ... trails and even sidewalks with the silent, swift vehicles. An enforcement blitz last September saw Toronto police write 3,500 tickets to e-bike ...   Is your trail impacted by the potential Alto High Speed rail project? The friends of the Cataraqui Trail write to OTC: We have become aware of the possible use of the Cataraqui Trail as part of the future Alto Train route. You can see where the proposed southern Alto train route traverses the trail via Alto’s interactive map: https://en.consultation.altotrain.ca/shaping-the-canada-of-tomorrow-with-high-speed-rail/places/interact-map The Friends are of course concerned and passed the motion below.  Motion: That the Friends of the Cataraqui Trail express opposition to the location of the ALTO High Speed Rail system along any section of the Cataraqui Trail and encourage members of the Friends of the Trail to express their own opinions to ALTO.  Alto is encouraging feedback via a brief. If your organizations are interested. Here is the link to submit a brief: https://en.consultation.altotrain.ca/shaping-the-canada-of-tomorrow-with-high-speed-rail/surveys/upload-brief The OTC will be sending in its own brief, we encourage OTC members impacted by the railway to also write their own brief. Ontario's Trails Are Rural Recreation in 85% of Ontario. Patrick Connor Writes - "I'm Proud to be a Board Member with Kim Goodman on this initiative." https://www.facebook.com/ruralrecreationassociation/     OTC President’s Corner  March 2026 As many of us now say, “It’s been a minute” since we last connected and so it has. As a Canadian it would be strange of me not to inject something about the weather – so however you experienced winter in Ontario this season, I’m hoping you found a way to enjoy it outdoors on a trail! Spring is near and we all can feel the sun’s warmth again. It is beginning to feel like a new day in more ways than a seasonal change. I’ll give you a simple example. Since the summer of 2000, the Ontario Trails Council (OTC) and the Trans Canada Trail (TCT) decided it was in their best interest to each take a different “fork in the trail”. The trail each agency followed diverged but were never out of sight and often not out of step with each other’s forward direction. Time passed, trail leaders moved on, history faded and those two forks in the trail, found their way back to a single, more established pathway. If you heard it from someone else, this should help make it clear: the Ontario Trails Council is once again working with the Trans Canada Trail on trail related challenges to find solutions and improve trail operations and the user experience here in Ontario. We need each other – we always have. Starting this week, the OTC is engaging with local trail champions in Durham Region, near Uxbridge – Trails Capital of Canada to knit together a solution that will stabilize the management of the Beaver River Wetland Trail – a 22km TCT section, in collaboration and with the support of the Trans Canada Trail. As an OTC member, trail manager and/or trail enthusiast you may have questions about what changed? What took you so long? How do we tap into this kind of OTC/TCT assistance? What I can tell you here is that this renewed arrangement was long in the making, fostered by many over many years and I’d be happy to share more about how it came to be in several ways. First, I’d like to thank Patrick Connor (OTC Executive Director) and Kim Goodman (OTC Board Member) for their resilience, openness and aim to support this renewed relationship with the Trans Canada Trail team. Now as for the options to connect and learn more see below: Option 1: reach out and email me president@ontariotrails.ca. If my inbox is overwhelmed by your questions, that’ll be a happy problem because we’ll get to meet each other. Option 2: reach out to Patrick Connor (Executive Director) and ask about membership renewal, assistance and support – he’d love to get in touch. execdir@ontariotrails.ca Option 3: Consider attending the Canadian Trail Summit in Winnipeg June 16-19 https://canadiantrailsummit.ca/ being hosted by Trans Canada Trail. This is a great chance to catch up, connect, talk trail challenges and solutions. Also, The Forks in Winnipeg is an iconic destination in Canada, especially in June – not to be missed.   Can’t make the Summit but would still like to support it? We have an OTC GoFundMe account set up below, the aim is to use the funds raised to offset the costs of 10 Ontario attendees to the conference. We’d love the support, but even better is to have 10 reps from Ontario attend and bring back the learning here.   Safe, accessible and enjoyable trails to all of you, Dan   Ontario Parks Ontario Parks part of the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, has released the Background Information Document to support developing a management plan for Monarch Point Conservation Reserve.   Please see the attached notice for more information.   The document and supporting material are available on the Environmental Registry of Ontario at ero.ontario.ca under bulletin 025-0959.   __________________________________________________________   Southeast Zone – Ontario Parks 300 Water Street, 4th Floor N, Peterborough, Ontario, K9J 3C7 W: OntarioParks.com Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks