For the fifth year in a row, the
Waterfront Regeneration Trust (WRT) is leading a group of cycle tourists on eight-day ride across the entire 720-kilometre Waterfront Trail route.
Participants of the
Great Waterfront Trail Adventure (GWTA), which officially kicked off this past Saturday, began at the trail's most western point, Niagra-on-the-Lake, and will be making their way to the Quebec border at its most eastern.
GWTA tour manager Marlaine Koehler says the impetus behind the trail adventure is twofold—it's as much to showcase the trail as it is the communities alongside it. While the trail was officially completed 20 years ago, it was not until 2007 that a continuously signed route was in place from Niagara to the Quebec border. After the completion of the signage, the Waterfront Trust, the nonprofit which moniters and manages the trail, started looking for ways to promote the route and the communities who had helped build it.
"In 2007 we have this signed route. We wanted to get people back on the route and start thinking about what kind of event would do it," says Koehler. "What kind of event will offer a trail-wide perspective? And that's how we came up with the Great Waterfront Trail Adventure. It had to be an adventure so that it could include more than just cycling; so there's kayaking, there's heritage tourism, there's music and there's wineries. But we needed to cycle because we wanted to start from one end and show people that using the existing signage that you could actually use the trail."
In addition to coordinating the ride, the WRT also organizes stops and events in more than 40 Ontario communities along the way, eight of which double as overnight camp sites for of the hardworking cyclists.
"Each community wants to be an overnight," says Koehler, "so every year we change the overnight to reflect the communities that want to have us."
And, she adds, one of this year's most anticipated overnights was held on Sunday at Toronto's
Fort York.
"Our theme this year is 1812 so we were all very excited about Fort York. They've been amazing hosts. They made sure there were re-enactors there, a cannon firing and heritage tours of the facility."
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Marlaine Koehler, GWTA Tour Manager, Waterfront Regeneration Trust