35 km of multi-use trails coming to Dawson City, Yukon

Dawson City is the latest Yukon community to join a growing trend: developing a network of trails that cater to a variety of users, including tourists.

This spring the town released theDawson Trail Management Plan 2016-2025, a study that includesmonths of information collected from trail users, as well as assessments of the trails that are currently in the community.

"We thought, before we go ahead and build more trails, let's do an inventory and plan first," said Marta Selassie, manager of recreation with the town.

Selassie said the town learned a lot about how residents use the trails, like how many residents walk on the Dome Road instead of on the trailsbecause they worry about bear encounters.

"The Dome has, as everybody knows, a lot of bear traffic on it," she said.

Selassie said that concern could be addressed by making sure that trails there have clear lines of sight.

The plan envisions a well-maintained core network of 25 kilometres of non-motor-friendlytrails and more than10 kilometres of motor-friendly,multi-use trails. The 25 kilometresof trailswould be mostlynarrow, single-track trails and ofthose, about halfwould involve the restoration of historic trails. The other half would include new andupgraded, existing trails.

Selassie said the trial study revealed the trails are heavily used by many different usergroups, although she recognizes that many of those trails have not beenmaintained.

"Dawson has quite an extensive trail network, many of which are not actively managed by anybody or looked after by anybody at the moment. The hope is that we'll adopt some of these into a trail network and start looking at them."

Selassie said the first task is putting up signs, thengetting applications in for some federal and territorial funding.
She said the town consulted with the Tr'ondk Hwch'in, and hopes the First Nation will partner with the town on the trail project.

Selassie adds that Dawson hopes to offer the trail network to tourists as part of their "Dawson City experience."