TIMMINS A significant donation will help maintain the local trail system for the next five years.
Lake Shore Gold is donating $350,000 over five years to the Mattagami Region Conservation Authority (MRCA) to cover repairs and maintenance costs of the 55 kilometres of trails.
“We’re pretty much the responsible party for the existing trail network in the City of Timmins,” said MRCA general manager David Vallier. “We’re going to be focusing on the Rotary Trail this summer. That trail really has a lot of extremely wet areas, so we’re going to need to provide a lot more material.”
Along with boosting work on the trail between Schumacher and South Porcupine, the cash will also help with garbage collection and maintenance on the rest of the trail system.
Lakeshore Gold director of environmental and sustainability Marcel Cardinal said that the trail system is near and dear to him and many others working for the company.
“We have a history with the MRCA on various projects and supporting various projects. It was important for us to look at this one specifically and realize that a lot of people within the community use the trails. A lot of our employees use the trails,” he said. “It’s something to promote the recreational activity, outdoors thing that Timmins has to offer.”
He has fond memories of the trail system from his own youth in Timmins.
“I was a very heavy user back in my younger days,” he said. “Hopefully, in the future, I can get back on the bike and get on some of these trails.”
According to the MRCA, over 200,000 people use the trails each year. The organization also manages four conservation areas, including Gillies Lake.
The MRCA hires between eight and 12 students every summer and a two-person maintenance team to collect trash along the trails.
“We know there are a lot of people using the trail system, and as a small organization, we have a very limited budget, so it’s extremely generous,” said Vallier. “We have a full-time staff of five, so with this money, we’re able to pay for some of the students to do trail work, the material we’re going to be using to upgrade the trail system, to make sure that the culverts are changed, the bridges are safe to use and those types of things.”