Government grant provides funds

The Burns Lake Snowmobile club along with the Lakes Economic Development Association (LEDA) and Burns Lake Community Forest (BLComfor) are building a 38 kilometer recreational snowmobile trail called the Thousand Island Snowmobile Trail, from six km on the Babine Road to the Upper Pinkut logging road north of Rose Lake. The trail will provide access from Babine Road to the snowmobile playground area north of Topley.

The opportunity to build the trail came about when a $200,000 grant for the project was landed through the Job Opportunities Program; part of the $129 million federal government Community Development Trust Fund designed to provide assistance to communities and individuals affected by the economic downturn in the forest industry.

Burns Lake Snowmobile club president Ron Nay said it was a group effort and they couldn’t have done it alone.

“LEDA was 100 per cent responsible for obtaining our grant money,” he said, “and BLComfor have taken on all the administration and the actual awarding of contracts and stuff. So it’s extremely important that they be recognized for their contributions to this project,” said Nay. “The trail itself is going to be approximately 10 metres wide [33 ft]. It’s going to be about 38 km long depending on how far exactly the dollars run. From the trails start on the snowmobile club property at six km on the Babine Road, it meanders north through the bush passing a few small lakes like Anita Lake and Nellion Lake and then turns north west and ends after 38 km at the Upper Pinkut logging road.”

The trail width of 10 metres, said Nay, is to accommodate logging machinery so the work can be done locally. A narrower trail may have meant specialty machinery brought in from outside.

The trail, said Nay, stuck to the high ground and did not cross any many major logging roads.

Project manager Tom Brewer said they were trying to maintain a route that would use zero culverts, and they were staying away from classified streams, or, as in the case of Decker Creek, crossing above the fish bearing portion of the stream. He said the biggest challenge was getting rid of the wood that had to be cut down along the way.

“We’re trying to make the trail as natural as possible so in the coming years there won’t be big piles of debris rotting in the bush,” he said.

Brewer said they were able to use a self loading truck to remove a lot of the timber; trees, tops, limbs and all will be decked at three main sites along the way. One site is at the snowmobile club property on Babine Road, another is on the North Road across from Decker Lake Forest Products and the last timber decking site is on the Upper Pinkut logging road at the far end of the trail. BLComfor will then oversee the selling of any merchantable wood to recover trucking costs on the project, and the remainder, if any, will go to the snowmobile club. Brewer estimates they will have pulled out around 4,000 cubic meters of wood by the time the trail is completed.

So far, said Brewer they have been able to employ a feller-buncher, a skidder, a small cat and an excavator on the job.

BLComfor director Wes Sam said he hoped this trail was just the beginning of what he thinks will be an economic shot in the arm for the area.

“Who knows what this trail will bring?” he said. “Burns Lake is a good can-

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didate for more trails. Nobody knows what we have here, and to share it with everyone would be great.”

And good business as well. According to the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association, snowmobiling is a $6 billion dollar industry in Canada. Studies show snowmobile tourists spend an average of $125-$150 a day each on fuel, meals and lodging. The market for touring is well developed in Ontario and Quebec and with the spectacular scenery here, B.C. is thought to have a lot of potential for the trail touring market.

The new Thousand Island Snowmobile Trail is scheduled to be completed by mid February, but the public is welcome to try out the portions that are finished anytime they like before then.

There now exists a continuous snowmobile trail from Kamloops to Prince George and proponents of the industry would like to see that trail continued to the west joining the towns along Hwy. 16.

According to LEDA, to date Burns Lake has been awarded funding of approximately $600,000 for trail development and also to address the mounting fuel problem resulting from the mountain pine beetle infestations in our forests.