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Pressure being put on Yk trails

Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 16, 2012

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Housing developments proposed in the city's general plan may add more pressure to trails in the Kam Lake and Grace Lake area.

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Great Slave Snowmobile Association president Bruce Hewlko shows off the organization's new groomer at Sub Arctic Surveys, Monday. The RTV 1100 Kuboto was purchased by the association after the group raised funds through membership fees, poker derbies, and various corporate contributions. Only in the past week has the association had its first dedicated week of grooming area trails for recreational sledders. - Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photo

The plan includes proposals for two large housing developments as part of a 10-year effort to increase the number of housing units in the city. One located in Kam Lake will add 170 new units and is being worked on by Homes North.

Another is on the north shore of Grace Lake, which has yet to find a developer and may include another 30 units.

Eric Sputek, director of the Kam Lake Road Property Owners Association, spoke to city council at the general plan public hearing Dec. 12 and said all of this development will mean much more traffic along Kam Lake Road.

He says there is a need to improve trail development in the area to service such growth. Sputek suggested a trail network should connect Grace Lake, Deh Cho Boulevard and Kam Lake Road with the arena.

"There is a lot of traffic there and a long-term vision which has a trail connection to the new residential area in Grace Lake would make a lot of sense," said Sputek.

"If that trail was done along Kam Lake Road to Grace Lake, that would service the people living at Grace Lake, but also the business people who walk to work or ride a bike and do all of these things along Kam Lake Road."

Sputek says property owners in his association foresee a continued growth of pedestrians, cyclists and snowmobiles in the area and that it would therefore be beneficial to solidify a trail network.

Great Slave Snowmobile Association president Bruce Hewlko, is also a member of the Kam Lake Property Association because his business, Sub-Arctic Surveys Ltd is located on Utsingi Drive.

He says although there has been a long history of having a snowmobiling association in Yellowknife, only in recent years has there been an increased effort to better organize the association in order to work with the city and express specific interests in the trails.

Currently, he says, the trails being used through the Kam Lake area are haphazard and are often based on old walking trails.

"There is a trail from Deh Cho Boulevard kind of behind the old CBC tower site which then goes up Kam Lake Road and onto Coronation Drive," Hewlko explained. "It goes down into the ditch in Coronation Drive and then through Block 501 onto Kam Lake. But it is not exactly a trail."

He says historically the association has not always had a strong interest in trail riding, as in the past city sledders have sometimes focused more on the racing aspect of the sport. However, this trend seems to be changing.

For one, the association purchased a $27,000 RTV 1100 Kuboto snow trail groomer last fall, after raising funds through recreational events like poker derbies, from membership fees, and from corporate donors.

The general plan states that developers, as is the case with Homes North on Block 501, must carry the costs of re-routing snowmobile trails if residential or commercial construction interferes with sledding routes.

This all suggests there is a stronger focus among riders to facilitate snowmobiling transportation through the Kam Lake area.

"We do work fairly closely with the city and any developments in the area can block, reroute, hinder, and modify the trail system," Hewlko said.

"It is one of those things that - while the trails are there - you can't block a new subdivision because of a snowmobile trail.

"So the city has in their bylaws that if you develop a subdivision where there is an existing trail, that you have to make allowances for that at the first sign."

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