Opening of Monty’s Trail

You won’t want to miss this one! Watch for the grand opening of Monty’s Trail at the Pender Fall Fair on August 27. Karl and Hedi Hamson in their always generous way have allowed MAP to construct a modest trail across their property. In fact, Karl did a huge amount of the work on this trail himself, including building the very first stile on Pender. The stile allows walkers to get over the fence while keeping Karl’s sheep within the field. There’s even a ‘dog door’ to accommodate small dogs. The trail is named after Hedi and Karl’s large, enthusiastic Labrador Monty, known to many of you for his wandering ways. Monty’s trail [dogs on leash please—except for Monty!] starts at the back of the Community Hall, winds through the woods and exits just across the road from the Auchterlonie Centre, and is a delightful and safe alternative to using the road.

This is MAP’s first trail and it is especially special because it is on private land.

MAP has a long term vision of creating interconnected walking and biking trails on Pender to allow us to leave our cars at home, and enjoy nature while keeping ourselves and the environment in good shape. One way to help achieve this is to have some trails on the private property of community-minded land owners. This is now realistic because MAP has collaborated with trail societies on the other Southern Gulf Islands to purchase liability insurance for landowners who agree to allow such trails on their land.

Coming Soon. Watch for the extension of MAP’s trail system which, thanks to careful work by Ron Henshaw, will connect the Community Hall to the Farm Stand, via Valley Home Farm on Linda and Don Wein’s property. Way to go Don and Linda! Thanks to their generosity you will soon be able to avoid walking on that traffic-laden stretch of road. Both Monty’s Trail and the Valley Home Farm trail are on agricultural land and the owners obtained permission from the ALC to construct these trails.