YELLOWKNIFE - The Yellowknife Ski Club wants City Hall to stay away from their trails.

At Monday's council meeting at City Hall, Kevin McLeod, president of the club, asked council not to develop Niven Lake into one of their major trails.

Kevin McLeod, president of the Yellowknife Ski Club, shows city council a map Monday night depicting where Phase 8 of the Niven Lake development scheme will cut into one of the club's trails. - Peter Crnogorac/NNSL photo

"The Niven Lake Phase 7 and 8 developments very definitely have the potential to impact the ski club," he said.

He said that Phase 8 will cut off access to the top of a key trail - a loop section onto Old Tow Hill, within the ski club grounds.

Also, Phase 7 and Phase 8 will go through a trail outside of the Ski Club used by snowmobilers traveling from Frame Lake to Back Bay. McLeod said that the snowmobilers will have no choice but to make a new path directly through the ski trails, which would bring the risk of collisions between the snowmachines and skiers.

"Skiers and snow machines do not mix," he said. "The current snowmobile trail takes the majority of traffic away from the skiers. Future development has the impact of closing this route off. Although this is clearly a snowmobile issue, and I cannot speak for them, the Ski Club will certainly be impacted by any realignment of the current traffic pattern."

McLeod said that the loop on the trail in question is outside its boundary lease with the city, and is actually Commissioner's Land. He added that the club has been asking the city to resolve the problem since they began developing Niven Lake about 10 years ago.

Afterwards, city councillor Bob Brooks asked Jeffrey Humble, director of planning and development for the city, to clarify the boundaries of the Ski Club.

Humble said the east boundary of the club will run up to the development of Phase 8. He said it may be a little premature to deal with the Ski Club issue at this time.

"The City doesn't have title yet to what will be Phase 8," he said. "It's Crown Land."

He added that it wasn't the City's plan to discuss potential problems for the Ski Club until they're ready to plan out Phase 8. He said stringent design plans for Niven Lake have caused problems for the city in the past.

"Too much detail binds us in development," he said, adding that by being flexible the city can work with the ski club to come up with a solution when Phase 8 begins.

After the council meeting, McLeod said that he brought the issue to council because he wants it to be resolved before the development of Phase 8.

"We are a voluntary group," he said. "We don't have the time and resources to work on this problem constantly. So we want to be two to three years ahead of the city to be within their planning cycle."