Trail Ambassadors are a great help in keeping trails maintained throughout Manitoba.
From making sure signage is up to date, to mowing grass, trail ambassadors make sure trail conditions are good for those exploring the trails.
Crow Wing Trail Ambassador Tara Boulanger says sometimes signs are bent or have been shot by hunters
“So we have to replace those signs and make sure that they're up to date, that they're still pointing in the right direction.”
Then when poles are knocked over, they are in charge of cleaning them up and putting new ones in.
She says a big part of the job is checking the conditions of the trail itself.
“Sometimes there's a bunch of potholes along some of the road sections, so we have to bring that to the attention of the municipality,” she says. “Or within the actual trail portion, if it's flooded and underwater, we have to let people know.”
The Crow Wing Trail is roughly 200km. It goes from the floodway by Duff Roblin Provincial Park all the way to Emerson.
For such a big trail, the team involved in taking care of the Crow Wing Trail is actually quite small.
“For people who are actually working on the trails itself, it's just myself and my boss Dolores, along with other volunteers that are from the different areas.”
Boulanger estimates she and her boss do 400 to 600 km of biking and walking the trail to check conditions each season.
On the parts of the trail that are along farmers fields, she mows the grass so that it’s easier for people to see where they are going, and it also gives bikers an easier time.
“And if we're in a wooded area and we see that there are some branches that are hanging into the trail, we try to cut those off, or if we see that some saplings are encroaching and growing in, we try to push that back as well.”
She says the trail is very well marked, and for the most part if there is ever a turn or intersection that might look confusing, there will be signs that indicate where you need to go.
“And if you can't see any signs, it might be worth looking around in the ditch because there are cases where either farmers, or snow graders in the winter, end up knocking over the signs that maybe we haven't gotten to.”
She notes that earlier this summer they found a pool of water on the trail which was caused by a beaver dam that was up the hill a little bit.
“We saw that their dam was actually up higher than where the actual pool of water was across the trail,” she says. “So then we made sure that if we were to let the water flow out from the trail, that it wouldn't cause any damage to the beaver.”
She says that they saw they had a beautiful pond built around their dam.
“I haven't seen a type of dam like that before, but it seemed like they were trying to limit the flow of water at the beginning, and then they realized that it wasn't deep enough, so then they went higher up and then created their dam up there.”
She says after clearing out the dam on the trail itself, they used a shovel to break through the wood to create a stream for the water to flow into the other side of the ditch.
“We just cleared that out, the water flowed away, we made sure that it was all good up top.”
Boulanger notes her favourite part of the trail is the swinging bridge that goes across the Roseau River.
“It has a really nice trail that leads up to it, but it's also a great place that if you wanted to just drop a couple of tubes in the water and flip down the river, it's beautiful and perfect for that.”
If you have any questions, you can reach out to the Crow Wing Trail on Facebook.
With files from Carly Koop
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