Blazing Trans Canada trail through Crooked Lake

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There will soon be a new way to view Canada from your feet on the Trans Canada Trail. Portions of the trail are being built all across the country by volunteers who want their communities on the map to showcase their home-town pride to the walking, hiking, skiing, jogging world.

In Crooked Lake, 150 km east of Regina, over 100 residents of the resort communities along the lake took it upon themselves to invite the trail into the valley.

Original plans for the trail bypassed the Crooked Lake resorts, but the valley-dwellers wouldn't take no for an answer. Phil Olshewski, chair of the Crooked Lake Parks and Recreation Board and resident of Sunset Beach, says the original intent of the trail was to have a safe place for residents, visitors and particularly the children to walk and cycle.

Highway #247, along the valley floor, has a large amount of foot and bicycle traffic and poses a danger with the equally high volume of resort traffic. About the same time discussions were underway about a safer environment for their kids to play and for people to exercise, the board received information that the Trans Canada Trail was taking a different bend and began its campaign to bring the trail down to the valley where it belongs.

Much had to be done from careful preparation of briefs and reports, newsletters to permanent and seasonal cabin owners, many fund raising events from garage sales to steak suppers to contracting the building of the foot highway.

It all came together with the big kick-off pancake breakfast for over 400 people and official opening ceremonies on August 2. Eighteen kilometers of trail along the shores of Saskatchewan's best kept secret, Crooked Lake, became the first section of the Trans Canada Trail to be constructed outside of Saskatchewanis provincial parks.

"You may not be on the Trans Canada Highway, but you are on the Trans Canada Trail," says Carol Brasok, director of the Trans Canada Trail Foundation and general manager of Saskatchewan Parks and Recreation.

Valerie Skotheim, owner of Cedar Cove Resort on Moose Bay hosted the event. She says the trail will boost business in the valley. "It will bring people from Canada, the U.S. and Europe as they follow the trail."

The Crooked Lake portion of the trail will cost approximately $115,000. A system of donations has been set up for individuals and organizations.

"Eleven and a half of the 18 kilometers of Crooked Lake trail run through the Sakimay First Nation," says Gwen Acoose (granddaughter of the runner Paul Acoose) and economic development co-ordinator for Sakimay.

Acoose presented a cheque for $5,000 and Sakimay became the first First Nation co-sponsor of the Saskatchewan leg of the trail.

"As leaders we need to have plans to make sure our visions come true," she says.