Coral Harbour (Aug 16/06) - The Honda trail linking Coral Harbour to the Duke of York Bay reached the halfway milestone this past week.

The trail has been in development since 1999, with the hamlet of Coral Harbour securing financing from The Community Initiatives program and access-road funding to continue the project.

The director of operations for the Salliq Development Ltd., Dino Bruce, said a crew will remain on-site until Aug. 20, with its progress monitored on a daily basis.

He said current construction is taking place in the wetlands, which is quite time consuming and requires a great deal of gravel hauling.

"We're looking at a minimum of another four or five years before we can totally complete the trail," said Bruce.

"It's difficult to put an exact monetary figure on the project because the area has never been professionally surveyed.

"We don't know which areas will need granular material and which ones will only require grader work."

Bruce said he currently has local scouts hired who are using ATVs on the land to stake out areas in front of the heavy equipment.

He said it's risky to even send equipment to the site at this point in time.

"Should something go wrong and any of the equipment get stuck, there's a possibility I may not see it again until the following year.

"The Kerchoffer Bridge is especially risky right now.

"A couple of years ago, a piece of the hamlet's heavy equipment got stuck in that area and it took us three days to get it out.

"The bridge can only hold limited weight, so we can only send certain pieces of equipment across it to begin with, and the margin for error is quite small."

Bruce said the hamlet of Coral Harbour deserves a great deal of credit for the Honda trail advancing this far.

He said both the general community and those involved with outfitting and economic development in the hamlet stand to gain when the trail is completed.

"Local tourism stands to benefit a great deal when the trail is done and the Duke of York Bay is readily accessible from the community."