The magazine of outdoor recreation and adventure on Vancouver Island and coastal British Columbia
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Wild Coast Magazine's North Coast Trail pages
It's open! Wild Coast Magazine, Spring 2008 Download the PDF version of this article here. Photos this page courtesy Shaun Korman / Strategic Forest Management
As the co-chair of the North Vancouver Island Trails Society, he’s been at the receiving end of the growing interest about the opening of the North Coast Trail. “People are chomping at the bit. They’ve done the West Coast Trail and Cape Scott Trail. Here’s another gem with a lot to offer,” he said. “There’s a level of interest from people all over the world who can’t wait to get out and get on it.” The honour of the first official hike, though, goes to seven men: Dave Trebett, Ron Quilter, Shaun Korman, Jacob Blanchard, Ben McGibbon, Ben Pawlett and Dave Parker. Representing BC Parks and the company building the trail, Strategic Forest Management, they completed the 43.1-km extension to the Cape Scott Trail Nov. 4-8 in 2007. “I remember dropping down into Nissen Bight and just being blown away that they had beaches like this in BC. I just had no idea,” he said. Korman started with Strategic in 2005 as a crew member helping construct the trail. By that point a fair amount of the work had already been done, but funding interruptions had a habit of putting things into a quagmire. Huddlestan says one of the biggest snags was having to stop work and get crews out simply because funding kept running out. Now complete, he estimates the cost at somewhere around a million and a half dollars – a bargain compared to what else you could get for that money. “It might buy you a half-decent condo in False Creek,” he said. For much of the past few years, Korman’s summer accommodation has been somewhat more rustic.
Given the background, Korman and the rest of the crew were well-prepared for what was in store before the November inaugural hike. But it wasn’t just an ordinary hike, as the group took GPS waypoints of the route, classified beaches, assessed areas for future work, and even did some trail maintenance on the way. But surprisingly, for so late in the year, the weather cooperated. “We had an unbelievable week of weather. All the stars aligned for four out of the five days.” One of Korman’s favorite locations is Cape Sutil. “It’s absolutely drenched in history and culture,” he said. “For me to be out there is sublime, in a way.” Add to that the 15 km of the existing Cape Scott Trail and it makes for just under 60 km along the island’s north edge. “Something like 10 kilometres a day is realistic for the average hiker,” Korman said. Copyright Wild Coast Magazine 2008 Download the PDF version of this article here. Explore the other North Coast Trail pages:
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It took about 15 years to get to this point, but Al Huddlestan knows the world is ready.
For Korman, the parks and recreation project manager at Strategic, it was the fitting highlight of three years of involvement in building the trail.
“We lived in wall tents for six months, with no electricity on one of the stormiest coastlines in BC. We made do with the basics,” he said.
The GPS tracking of the trail shows the late adjustments paid off, with the finished trail coming in at 43.1 km, down from the 46 to 47 km when the trail was first plotted.