 |
Find and use your favorite today!
Please consider supporting our work
Please consider making a donation or taking out a membership today! We rely on the generous support of the Canadian trail community to allow us to do our work. Our Mission - to promote the preservation, management, use and development of trails.  Everyday, somewhere in Ontario we educate, support a group, lead or assist a community improving its quality of life through trails.Thanks Need Funding? - Here's a list of where to turn Often we hear from trail groups - most recently TRCA, G2G, Elgin County and Lennox and Addington who want to develop trails, but there is no strategic or business plan in place. Most grants develop programs and services or fund service provision. We want to hear from you - where did you get funding for your strategic plan for your trails? Could include master plan or other plans that involve trails. Thanks. 613-484-1140 execdir@ontariotrails.ca
National Trails Coalition - infrastructure (closed) - but reviewing their grant app would get your docs prepped for a different application
Ontario Trillium Foundation - 4 streams, including capital
There are a number of provincial grant applications you could explore but you have to be registered with the Grants Ontario System to see the applications by Ministry - closed till next round - see the website for more details.
MEDIE - has a stream - more for eco development, and the Invest in Ontario Funds - I might suggest regional funding streams includes Southern Ontario Prosperity and NOHFC programs
Also the Federal Enabling Accessibility Fund - Eligible Grant Recipients Include:
Not-for-profit organizations; Small businesses; Aboriginal organizations (including band councils, tribal councils and self-government entities); Territorial governments; and, Municipalities are eligible to submit an application only for projects that deliver activities under Priority #1 (enhancing access to recreational spaces for children with disabilities).
Indigenous Peoples Aboriginal Economic Development Fund - grant stream
Great Lakes Guardian Fund - Grants are available for projects that take place in Ontario within the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin. This includes: Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, the Ottawa River, their connecting channels, and their watersheds. This guide includes a map to help you identify your watershed. https://www.ontario.ca/page/great-lakes-guardian-community-fund#section-7
There are other infrastructure grants you could pursue through the relationships you have with the County - they can use gas tax surplus for infrastructure grants -
Cycling Funds CycleON Strategy
Building cycling infrastructure is important in helping us achieve the vision of #CycleON: Ontario's Cycling Strategy: Ontario as a great place to ride a bike.
http://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2015/04/ontario-investing-25-million-in-cycling-infrastructure.html
http://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2015/07/applications-for-funding-to-promote-cycling-now-open.html
OMAFRA also offers a long list - you'll have to pick a stream and discuss with a program manager
Support the Kinghorn Trail Development Last fall we started an audit of the rail corridor. This audit captures the good, the bad and the ugly. Using the latest trail auditing software, we are able to capture all the issues that need to be fixed prior to opening the trail. We will finish the audit in the spring for the full length of the line. Please support us in building this legacy trail along Lake Superior. Even a small donation adds up and supports the capital required to upgrade the corridor for Northwestern Ontario's only rail trail!  We have plans to upgrade the railbed surface to accommodate trail users like cyclists, hikers, summer motorized use and snowmobiles in the winter months. As a full multi-use trail, we will be able to keep the trail in the public domain for future generations to enjoy. The rail line doesn't stop at Nipigon but then turns north towards Greenstone. There has been some interest in discussing this as an option but conversations need to occur. Please support this legacy project as we create an amazing trail alongside Lake Superior - the great inland sea. Healthy Hikes Program!  |
Fourteen lovers of history came together this weekend to trace the ancient route taken by French explorer Étienne Brûlé, who was the first known European to travel the Lake Ontario region with the Huron-Wendat in September 1615.
Led by Christian Bode, president of the Société d’histoire de Toronto, the group paddled and hiked roughly 65 kilometres over three days, following the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail from Holland Marsh, south of Lake Simcoe, to the Swansea neighbourhood on the east bank of the Humber River.
“Sometimes it’s lost in suburbia, sometimes it’s there, and sometimes you have to reroute,” Bode said of the trail, which is estimated to have been travelled for up to 8,000 years.
“What has impressed me is not the fact that we walked the whole way, but that everywhere we went we were welcomed sincerely.”
Bode said Brûlé’s quest into Huron-Wendat territory 400 years ago was a seminal event; the Frenchman grew familiar with the routes of the landscape and learned the aboriginals’ language, which facilitated future fur-trade excursions and the infiltration of the area by Jesuit missionaries.
Ever since, Bode said, “there has been a French presence in the province of Ontario.”
The weekend of re-enactments of Brûlé’s travels started Friday, when the group canoed the first stretch in Lake Couchiching and attended a ceremony at the Champlain Monument, named for the man who founded Quebec City in 1608 — then capital of New France — and commissioned Brûlé to help explore and chart the Great Lakes region. The group also attended the opening of a new pavilion that was dedicated to the local Ojibwa.
As Bode’s history buffs resumed their hike south of Lake Simcoe on Saturday and made their way southwest, they planted a tree in East Gwillimbury, took in a French choir performance at a Newmarket farmer’s market, lunched with the local mayor at the Aurora Armoury, unveiled a new plaque to the Carrying-Place Trail in Vaughan and finally made their way to Swansea.
The hike concluded Sunday with a celebration of francophone and aboriginal history at the Lucy Maud Montgomery Parkette on Riverside Dr., with actors dressed in the garb of the early 17th century and an unveiling of a moccasin project for the occasion by Garry Sault, an Ojibwa elder with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation.
