An open letter to the municipalities and chiefs and councils of Manitoulin Island
To The Expositor:
Re: Billings Township and landowner dispute threatens snowmobile trails (December 23, 2015, Page 1)
Manitoulin Island Cycling Advocates (MICA) has read about the gate(s) placed across Con. 14/Fraser Rd. in Billings Township with interest and concern for this matter and other similar cases. Manitoulin Island has many such well travelled roads & road allowances. Some are used by cars and trucks to access real estate and waterways for fishing. Others are well travelled routes/trails used by snowmobilers, four-wheelers, hikers and mountain bikers and bring joy to locals and visitors alike. We fully support Billings in their endeavor to protect public access to this road that has been used by many for decades.
Our Island has seen a great increase in cycle tourism in the past few years. Manitoulin Island features over 800km of road cycling and over 45km of off road cycling as found on MICA’s “Manitoulin Island and La Cloche Mountains Cycling Routes and Road Map.”
Allowing restricted access and selling road allowances will make it increasingly difficult to offer abundant options to islanders and our cycling visitors. Our visitors choose to stay here on average 6.5 days because Manitoulin has so many routes to offer. MICA strongly supports any and all efforts to protect road allowances, given roads and trails and keep them accessible to the public.
To make Manitoulin an active living destination, we would like to encourage all Municipalities to pass resolutions that express the protection of public road allowances, access to water, well travelled trails, given roads and such (e.g., Baker Trail, Mud Creek Rd, Mac’s Bay Rd, Carter Bay Rd, Simcoe Point Rd, Harron Trail, Fraser Rd, Arda Rd, to name just some).
Thank you very much for your consideration in this matter, for the good of all.
Maja Mielonen
MICA President
Mindemoya
