Picture: Dan Lester – Chair-Border to Beaches, Hon. Vic Toews – MP Provencher, Linda Morin – V.P. - MRTA,
Hon. Ron Lemieux – MLA La Verendrye, & Harold Westdal, Director - Trans Canada Trail.
Border to Beaches Summary
The Border to Beaches Project is a trail completion initiative of the Manitoba Recreational Trails Association (MRTA) supported by the Trans Canada Trail (TCT) and the local trail associations.
The goal is a fully built high quality trail, winding 370 km from the rugged terrain of eastern Manitoba to the sun and sand of Lake Winnipeg’s beaches. Volunteers have been fund-raising, building and maintaining remarkable individual segments of this route – the Borders to Beaches Project will link the completed sections and transform them into a Manitoba showcase connecting two of Manitoba’s tourism gems: Grand Beach Provincial Park and Whiteshell Provincial Park. The development of this trail infrastructure will enable travellers to immerse themselves on an experience that will lengthen their stay and widen their exposure to eastern Manitoba.
Border to Beaches is a project that encourages healthy active living, linking communities, education, supports tourism and commerce and promotes the social and economic development of local areas. Once complete the trail will not only be a great recreation asset for Manitoba it will be an icon of the tourist industry.
The project enhances existing MRTA funding programs by addressing barriers not necessarily included in the normal granting processes. It will focus efforts on finding regional and site-specific solutions for trail building challenges.
Ultimately, the Border to Beaches Project is a pilot project, both for Manitoba and for the Trans Canada Trail across Canada. The approaches and solutions learned in this project will assist other large segments of trail to be completed, realizing the dream of a national trail, from sea to sea to sea. Manitoba is proud to be a leader with this trail completion initiative, which will establish a model of trail development throughout Canada.
This project supports the local initiatives of the South Whiteshell, North Whiteshell, Centennial, Pinawa, Blue Water South, Blue Water North and Red River North trail associations. Border to Beaches will be led by the MRTA, guided by the Implementation Committee, which was established in June 2008, to oversee the development and strategic execution of the implementation plan for the project. The Implementation Committee, consists of representatives from each of the local trail associations as well as representatives from the MRTA, Manitoba Conservation and Manitoba Culture, Heritage, Tourism and Sport .
Why Since the inception of the Trans Canada Trail project in 1992, volunteer trail steward groups have come forward to undertake the formidable task of building the 1,300 km trail across Manitoba. Volunteers have been fund-raising, building and maintaining remarkable individual segments of this route and where the trail has been relatively easy to construct, completion of the TCT has been achieved.
However, significant gaps in connectivity exist due to either a capital issue, whereby the measure far exceeds the capability of a local trail group to fundraise for, or a technological gap, whereby the solution has not been identified as workable within the existing physical constraints of the area. To date the trail remains unfinished as the barriers exceed the current capacity of the local volunteer organizations and without Border to Beaches the task of completing the Trans Canada trail in this region will remain unresolved indefinitely.
How As the individual and collective components of Border to Beaches exceed the capacity of either the local trail association or the MRTA to fund, the MRTA applied to the Building Canada Fund – Communities Component - Local Roads - Active Transportation projects as a component of a larger project sub category for 4.361 million dollars.
Letters of support for Borders to Beaches were provided to the MRTA from Manitoba Conservation (Parks) and the seven local municipalities the trail is located within (St. Clements, Powerview - Pine Falls, Alexander, Lac Du Bonnet, Pinawa, Whitemouth and Reynolds). The MRTA was extremely hopeful that Border to Beaches would be approved based upon its social, economic and environmental merits within a regional context.
On May 1st 2009 funding for Borders to Beaches by the Building Canada Fund was announced by Treasury Board President, The Honourable Vic Toews and the Minister of Infrastructure & Transportation, The Honourable Ron Lemieux. Under the terms of the agreement, the MRTA is responsible for 1/3 contribution ($1,453,703). An application to the Trans Canada Trail has been approved for $750,000, which enables the Border to Beaches Project to become an immediate achievable task!
This project will focus on finding regional and site-specific solutions for trail building challenges. By addressing administrative, capital and technological issues and by developing best practices, regional solutions can be implemented. Economies of scale and time will be achieved with bulk orders and the process for acquiring the required permitting will be facilitated.
The significant technological gap of wetland crossings will be addressed with the development of a system of floating boardwalks with minimal aquatic environmental impact well as minimal annual maintenance issues.
When As 203 km of the Border to Beaches trail have already been completed, this initiative is well underway with only 165 km of trail remaining to be constructed. The Border to Beaches project implementation schedule is slated for the spring of 2009 with an anticipated completion date of 2012. Specific needs and opportunities will be identified in an Action Plan, to be undertaken in the initial stage of the project, with trail construction beginning this spring.
Border to Beaches Map
The blue line indicates the location of the Border to Beaches project.