By Michael Gorman

NovaNewsNow.com



A public consultation for a possible hiking trail in the Tobeatic wilderness area drew a larger than expected crowd last week but few people seemed interested in trails.

About 140 people showed up at Carleton School in Yarmouth County Monday, Mar4ch 12, where the South West Shore Development Authority (SWSDA) and the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Labour were offering information on the proposed 9.75-km trail. However many of the people who showed up had other things on their mind.

A lot of people are still fuming over the recent Tobeatic management plan, which led to a ban on off-highway vehicles in the area. Many landowners are also angry over the loss of land and/or campsites. For some of these people those camps were in their family for more than 150 years and the idea of a trail that brings the general public into the Tobeatic is like pouring salt in an open wound.

"We're definitely against it," said Bruce Gates of East Kemptville, when asked of the general feeling for the trail idea in his community.

"The people can't use (the Tobeatic) anymore," he said. "The average ordinary hunter, fisher, trapper or ATVer, none of us are allowed to use it but they're going to build walking trails in the ground that we use for tourists to come in and walk on."

Camp owners and hunters say the off highway vehicle restriction means doing maintenance is just about impossible because they have no way of transporting supplies. It also renders hunting impossible because, as one camp owner pointed out, there is no way to bring a deer out of the woods if they get one.

But creators of the trail plan said the people at the meeting misunderstood its purpose.

Frank Anderson of SWSDA said that while he feels bad for the people who lost land or camps as part of the management plan, none of that has to do with a trail.

"We're dealing with this proposal," said Anderson. "We are not dealing with the rights of ATVers, the rights of people who lost their camps in there or the people who still own land and have no way to get to it except by walking. This has nothing to do with us. We are just talking about building a wilderness trail."

The plan would allow for walks in the area of multiple distances and Anderson said very little would be done in terms of creating the trails.

"There are some existing trails that need to be fixed up a bit and some cross trials made. That's it — very simple."

He sees the trail as a good marketing tool for the area.

"Most people do not know that the Tobeatic is a World UNESCO site. Once you advertise that as being there, it's a reason (for tourists) while they're in the area (to stay). It may hold them over for a day or may be a reason why they actually come."

Leif Helmer of the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Labour said the concerns raised at the public consultation are nothing new. Right now the plan is to gauge the level of interest in the idea of a trail, he said.

Helmer will write a report based on feedback from last week's session that will be passed on to the minister of environment. It will be the minister's decision, based on the proposal and the level of public support, if the project will move to the next step.

"If he says, you know, there's not enough public support, we might need to retool this and resolve some of these other issues," said Helmer.

"From what I heard (Monday) night we've got lots of work ahead of us if we want to go forward with this; we've got lots of issues to resolve."