Trans Canada Trail
by Mike Badyk, originally published in November 2000
Guide Book Project
An unprecedented opportunity to explore dropped in my lap this year. The story starts with a professional writer friend contacting me back in the spring. I've known Sue Lebrecht, a popular and well respected Ontario based travel writer (Mountain Bike Here!, Toronto Star, to name but a few) for several years now. I can't even remember when we first met. I suspect that it was at one of the bike shows. Sue and I rode together a couple of times in the past, but it wasn't like we had regular contact.
Sue's publisher, Boston Mills Press, had secured the rights from the Trans Canada Trail (TCT) Foundation to write the official trail guide series for the trail. It is one heck of a undertaking to say the least. You're dealing with the longest trail ever attempted by anyone, anywhere, on Earth. Sue wanted to hire me to write the sidebar notes on natural history/geography and local history for her book. I thought about it for maybe 2 seconds before saying yes. The side benefit for Sue was that I was a mountain biker and a fairly proficient bike mechanic.
In many respects, this was a dream come true. Besides a partial life in the bike industry, I am a geographer by instinct and trade. This has given me an itch to explore. It's probably why I became a cyclist at an early age. You could get places on a bike, plain and simple.
Back to the story. The other members of the team were a tourism researcher/driver and an employee of Navitrak, a company that will be producing a CD-ROM of the trail based on GPS (Global Positioning System) data collected during the trip. The daunting task for this year was the Maritimes. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland will appear in the first book, scheduled for publication in the spring of 2001. Due to scheduling, only Sue was able to research all four provinces. The entire team was together for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I had to return to teaching in late August, so I was the first to leave the team. My thoughts and observations below are from my experiences in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia portions of the TransCanada trail.
Ramblings, Highlights and Observations
Rail Bed - Yeah, there is a lot of rail bed on the TCT. Mountain bike purists will probably cringe. It's flat in most cases, or at the very least a constant grade. In a lot of places it has been covered in gravel. It looks like a road, especially along the St. John River in New Brunswick. It sure isn't single track.
I think that I can defend the decision of the TCT to use rail bed. I probably wouldn't have said that before the project started. I have never been a great fan of rail bed, although I have met a lot of people who are. You have to consider the goal of the TCT - get a trail from one end of this country to the other. Easier said than done. If you were trying to carve a trail through the forest, it would take decades. You might as well use what is there. For example, east of Woodstock, New Brunswick, the rail bed/TCT goes through 30 kilometres of what I would call extreme wilderness. No cross roads. Not even any drinking water. If you were to try to carve a trail out of this wilderness the cost would be astronomical. Better to have the rail bed than no trail. Or even worse, following local roads. Hugging the shoulder of a road isn't a trail.
Another factor to consider is that if you want to get across the country, you are going to have to get used to the idea that you will camp quite frequently. That means riding or hiking with full gear. If you're not on pavement, the gravel is going to limit the amount of trail that you can cover each day to start with, and if it was hilly trail, the distance that you could conceivably handle without killing yourself would be reduced even further.
An other important point is that the rail beds have bridges. If you're going to go across Canada, you quickly realize that we have some seriously big rivers. The rail companies built great big, sturdy bridges for their trains. Add some planking and you've got a way to get over the river. So that's why rail beds are nice.
On the other hand, I hated the sheer tedium of certain sections of rail bed. Mile after mile of similar looking forest and crushed stone. Gets to you after a while. You wish for a hill just for something different. This was only once in a while, though. In many spots the rail bed offered incredible views of rivers, the ocean or hills. I guess that it is minor complaint overall. Make it through one day and the next will bring you something new.
Rockwood Park, New Brunswick - Talk about a jewel. Rockwood Park is right within the city limits of St. John, New Brunswick. It's very different than a lot of southern New Brunswick, without the the soft, rolling hills and farmland that you find in most places. Instead you enter a jumbled pile of rocky hills, lakes and marshes. It was wonderful. We entered the park from the north end and immediately encountered a long sweeping downhill. A beautiful lake was at the bottom of the hill. Spruce, pine and birch hugged the shoreline. Then big climbs followed by more wonderful descents. Completely entertaining. The Trans Canada Trail mostly follows the wider multi-use paths, but there is a lot of single track in the park. I wish we had had more time to check them all out. The trails are good enough that Cycling New Brunswick has used the park for the Provincial Championships. I can see why. Go for a ride. Stop at the beach for a swim. Drive five minutes back into town. It doesn't get much better than this.
All Terrain Vehicles - They're out there. If you are in rural areas they are a way of life. The trail has been used for years by the locals. Just because it is now the TCT, it doesn't mean that they will stop using it. And you know, that is both good and bad. To the good were the families that we saw using their ATV's in Nova Scotia. All nice and legal. Single file. Helmets. Not going fast. Having a wonderful time. They waved and chatted with us and thought it was great that we were going to be doing the Guide Book. It was a really positive experience. Many sections of trail were terribly remote. You couldn't get a truck into some of these places (nor would you want to) so the ATV is the answer to do brush clearing, puddle draining, etc. As intended, the ATV is a work horse in this respect.
On the other hand, we also saw the worst side of the ATV. Fortunately it was only once. Young males on ATV's on a New Brunswick trail section where they weren't allowed. Moving too fast. No helmets. Just a scowl at us on our bikes. I felt really angry to see them there. They didn't belong because they were treating the TCT as a drag strip. Assholes. They would probably be the same on snowmobiles or motorcycles or even when they were in their cars/trucks.
It's going to be an uphill battle to keep the ATV's off the trail in many places. I also know that the presence of ATV's is not going to meet with universal acceptance from all trail users. It is going to be quite an issue in many locales. Ultimately, it will be decided by the local chapters of the TCT. It kind of reminds me of mountain bikes on trails about 10 years ago.
Guysborough, Nova Scotia - An incredible example of what a community can do if they put their minds to it. 700 people live in town and 70 of them are on the trail committee. Just unbelievable. Guysborough is on the Atlantic coast of the mainland, south of Cape Breton Island. Their section of the TCT is the remains of a rail line built to go inland to a mine. The trail has mostly been overgrown by the forest. You follow a tunnel through the thick red spruce. Lots of roots, rocks and puddles. Flat, but also technical. It was gorgeous. I think it is also the prototypical example of what the TCT could be under ideal circumstances. Let the vegetation encroach on the trail to make it narrower. It gave a wonderful sense of isolation, even though it wasn't that remote. I would go back in an instant. Also an amazing bakery in town with a bed and breakfast upstairs. Think about that, hungry cyclists!
Cape Breton Island - Cape Breton is justifiably famous as a tourism location. However, if you have ever been there and stuck to the roads (eg, Cabot Trail) you ain't seen the place. I have been to Cape Breton a number of times and I have never seen it this way. The TCT takes in the best of the island. In some places it is rail bed. In others it is logging roads and snowmobile trail. Bigger mountains. Higher bridges. The scale of everything increases. More geology to see. More critters and birds. Ocean and river valleys. This section of the TCT really had it all. You are doing yourself a disservice if you don't see Cape Breton from the Trail.
I don't really know how long it is going to take for Sue to complete the Guide Book Series. I just hope that I continue to be a part of it. It was one of the most rewarding cycling experiences that I have ever had. The best thing about it all is that we are going to have on heck of a cycling resource for all Canadians.
To find out more about the Trans Canada Trail, and to become a TCT supporter, visit their web site at www.tctrail.ca. For more information about the Official Trans Canada Trail Guide Book Series visit Sue's web site at www.lebrecht.com.
