A controversial recreation trail through an abandoned Canadian National Railway right-of-way in northeastern Alberta has passed its first hurdle after most landowners voted to support it.
Voters in the counties of St. Paul and Smoky Lake voted in favour of the rail line becoming a public use trail during Alberta’s municipal elections Oct. 15.
Voters in the Municipal District of Bonnyville voted against recreational use on the same CN line.
Gordon Fullerton, municipal administrator for the M.D. of Bonnyville, said he’s not sure what will happen now that two areas voted to have recreation use on the trail and one didn’t.
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“It really is difficult to decide really what it means,” said Fullerton.
The rail line is in the shape of a Y on its side. On the left is Smoky Lake, which voted yes. At the centre of the arm is St. Paul, which voted yes. Going up the northeastern arm is Bonnyville, which voted no.
The southeastern arm goes to Elk Point and connects with the existing Iron Horse recreation trail.
Steve Upham, a director of the Lakeland Rail Adjacent Landowners, which opposed the trail, said he hopes the Bonnyville municipal officials will honour the vote.
“I’m confident that will stand.”
Upham said farmers along the rail line opposed to the recreation use of the trail ran out of steam during the campaign.
“We got plain outpowered. We didn’t have the resources or the people to put into it,” he said.
Dareld Cholak, a member of the Part Nine Company, a group of 10 towns and municipalities along the trail formed to buy the land from CN, said nothing would happen until an agreement is signed with the railway.
Two days after the vote, members of the Part Nine Company met with CN and Alberta Environment officials to work out details on an environmental cleanup of the land before ownership changes.
Once the agreement is in place, those in favour of a recreation trail can apply for a development permit to use the trail. An appeal process is available for opponents of the trail.
Communities along the trail will use it as a public utility corridor where water lines and fibre optic cables may be laid.
The controversy has arisen only over what happens on top of the rail line.
The question of what to do with abandoned rail lines has pitted farmers who own land near the rail lines against recreation users who think the long, straight strips of land would be ideal for hiking and motorized travel and could make up part of a Trans-Canada trail network now in the works.
