Hiking club’s throughout the province have representatives lacing up their boots as they prepare to descend on Guelph later this month for the 50th annual Hike Ontario Summit.
The event, which is set for Sept. 28, will see about 100 folks from all areas of Ontario gather for the organization’s annual general meeting as well as share successes and challenges of trail-building and creating connections.
“There's a lot of knowledge that gets built and passed on in terms of how to deal with things like landowner relations, whether the landowner is private or public,” explained Bill Mungall, past president of the Guelph Hiking Trail Club (GHTC) and a member of the board with Hike Ontario. “You often pick up some pretty useful and valuable information.
“It usually introduces a number of new subjects which can enrich the programming that individual hiking clubs offer.”
There are 27 hiking clubs in the province, including GHTC which volunteered to host the half-century anniversary event. It’s been 10 years since GHTC hosted the annual summit, Mungall said.
“We really appreciate the opportunity to support Hike Ontario because it's been a valuable organization representing our interests at a provincial level, and it's been very helpful over the years,” he said. “I've gone to probably 11 or 12 of these summit events.”
GHTC manages about 90 km of trail throughout Guelph and surrounding area, crossing seven municipalities and four conservation authorities.
Among this year’s guest speakers will be Dr. Andrew Peregrin, an associate professor in the department of pathobiology department at the University of Guelph, who will discuss the “rather alarming spread” of ticks, as Mungall put it.
“They’ve gotten into this area in significant numbers in the last couple of years,” Mungall said, noting Peregrin’s presentation will help people learn “how you identify the good ticks and the bad ticks.”
“We've got 11 speakers in all coming to it,” he added. “It's a speakers’ event, primarily.”
Workshops include hiking trail maps and apps (pros and cons of what’s available), along with tics (their spread and how to identify them), environmental conservation and restoration, volunteerism and trail safety.
To register to attend, click here.
In addition to being a day of sharing and learning, Hike Ontario is also set to consider approving a new strategic plan.
“This is going to guide our activities for the next five years,” Mungall said of Hike Ontario, noting that plan doesn’t identify specific projects to be worked on. “It's at a higher level than that, but it provides the direction under which projects would be formulated.”
