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Challenge promotes area trails<br />
Muskoka Trails Council board member Amy McLeish takes some time to<br />
enjoy the Wilson Falls trails with her son Isaac McLeish Lafleur.<br />
Photograph: Sandy Lockhart<br />
By Chris Occhiuzzi<br />
The Muskoka Trails Council wants<br />
people to get their hiking boots on<br />
and explore Muskoka.<br />
At the beginning of May, the council<br />
launched its Passport to the Trails<br />
Challenge to promote the use and<br />
enjoyment of Muskoka’s many trails.<br />
“This challenge is free for everyone.<br />
Anyone can participate, it can be done<br />
individually or with others and no<br />
special equipment is needed,” says<br />
Sandra Beausoleil, Muskoka’s regional<br />
trails coordinator. “There are a variety<br />
of unique features to watch out for on<br />
the trails, such as floating bridges.”<br />
The Muskoka Trails Council wants<br />
people taking the challenge to have<br />
fun, get exercise and explore the beauty<br />
of Muskoka’s natural environment.<br />
“The idea is for everyone to have<br />
fun, enjoy the natural playground that<br />
is in our backyards, and appreciate<br />
some of the benefits of being physically<br />
active,” says Beausoleil. “Muskoka<br />
is such a beautiful place, full of important<br />
wildlife species, life-giving trees,<br />
fresh-water lakes and rivers, rocks and<br />
granite outcroppings. This Trail Challenge<br />
is all about getting outside to<br />
experience all that Muskoka has to<br />
offer, while being physically active.”<br />
The challenge is to visit six different<br />
trails marked on the passport: Gravenhurst’s<br />
Kahshe Barrens, Georgian<br />
Bay’s McCrae Lake Conservation<br />
Trail, the Huckleberry Rock Lookout<br />
Trail in the Township of Muskoka<br />
Lakes, Bracebridge’s Wilson Falls<br />
Trail, Huntsville’s Hunter’s Bay Trail<br />
and Lake of Bays’ Dwight Beach Trail.<br />
A Trail Passport Code will be clearly<br />
marked on a sign at each of these<br />
trails.<br />
While there are no prizes, other<br />
than good health, after <strong>com</strong>pleting the<br />
trail challenge participants can have<br />
their name added to the website by e-<br />
mailing Beausoleil at<br />
info@muskokatrails council.<strong>com</strong> with<br />
the codes.<br />
Plus, the Muskoka Trails Council<br />
encourages people to take pictures and<br />
submit them for display on their website.<br />
“This brilliant program was developed<br />
by my predecessor, the past<br />
regional trails coordinator, Katie Pellerin,”<br />
says Beausoleil. “She put<br />
together this idea based on the<br />
Muskoka Trails Council’s vision and<br />
mission, and utilized Muskoka’s fantastic<br />
venue of the trails to promote<br />
health benefits of healthy active living.<br />
The program is flexible – there is no<br />
end date, and you can take part at any<br />
time, any day of the year, and for as<br />
long as you like.”<br />
Passports are available at local<br />
libraries, chambers of <strong>com</strong>merce,<br />
Muskoka Tourism offices or local<br />
parks and recreations departments.<br />
They are also available online at<br />
www.muskokatrailscouncil.<strong>com</strong>.<br />
For Beausoleil, hiking is a family<br />
affair enjoyed through all seasons.<br />
“For me, any trail I can take my<br />
kids on is a great trail. Our family<br />
often takes in a trail or two on the<br />
weekends all year round,” she says.<br />
The sun’s shining, the birds are<br />
singing and there’s no time like the<br />
present to get up, get out and get on<br />
the trails.<br />
Frost Centre Institute closed due to significant loss<br />
By Jenn Watt<br />
Two months shy of its third anniversary,<br />
the Frost Centre Institute north of<br />
Halls Lake near Dorset will close down<br />
permanently because of overdue rent.<br />
Run by Al Aubry, a former IBM businessman,<br />
the institute took over the<br />
Frost Centre in June 2007 with the<br />
intention of capitalizing on the environment<br />
and arts to create a vibrant<br />
summer camp, education system and<br />
year-round conference centre.<br />
But despite all efforts, Aubry couldn’t<br />
stop the institute from losing money.<br />
“Like any new business . . . it was<br />
tough,” Aubry says. “It was brutally difficult<br />
to find capital investments.”<br />
Over the past three years, the institute<br />
bled money through the winter<br />
months, unable to get the numbers<br />
needed to stay afloat. In a public report<br />
released in November, Aubry wrote:<br />
“The one goal that continues to elude<br />
us is the all-important goal of making<br />
the Frost Centre Institute economically<br />
self-sufficient. Like many businesses<br />
6 May 2010 www.whatsupmuskoka.<strong>com</strong><br />
and governments these days, we are<br />
operating at a deficit and we are accumulating<br />
some debt. The reason is that<br />
our activity levels drop off dramatically<br />
in the period from November to April,<br />
just at the time when the operating<br />
costs are at their highest levels.”<br />
The provincial government, which<br />
owns the Frost Centre, was at first<br />
lenient with the institute, says Rick<br />
Johnson, MPP for Haliburton-<br />
Kawartha Lakes-Brock, but eventually<br />
it had to make a decision.<br />
“The bottom line is they’re facing<br />
some incredible financial challenges.<br />
The province has gone above and<br />
beyond trying to assist them with this<br />
through not collecting rent I think<br />
since the first payment and it just got to<br />
a point where he’s not going to get out<br />
of that,” he says.<br />
The Frost Centre Institute hasn’t paid<br />
rent on the building since its first<br />
installment nearly three years ago, he<br />
says.<br />
Johnson wouldn’t disclose how much<br />
money was lost on the venture, but<br />
called it “significant.”<br />
“We’ve really gone above and beyond<br />
to help them out and make it work. If<br />
it had been viable, if we could see a<br />
point at some point where they’d have a<br />
chance to repay the money that hadn’t<br />
been collected, but it got to the point<br />
where it didn’t seem that it was an<br />
option,” he says.<br />
Aubry had proposed a few scenarios<br />
to the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure<br />
hoping to break even, but by<br />
that point they weren’t biting, he says.<br />
“We reduced the loss by 60 per cent .<br />
. . and were to break even in 18<br />
months,” he says.<br />
He asked that the centre close down<br />
in the winter months, but found the<br />
government unwilling to take over the<br />
building in the downtime.<br />
Finally, he developed an idea to<br />
launch the Frost Environmental College<br />
to keep the place sustainable year<br />
round, but needed large capital investment,<br />
which couldn’t be found.<br />
The government’s plan now is to take<br />
over the building, keep it up to standard<br />
and look for a new tenant or<br />
owner.<br />
“It’s unfortunate. I think [Aubry] had<br />
some good ideas,” Johnson says.<br />
“Whether the economy or just whatever<br />
undercut his operation is unfortunate,<br />
but it’s a great facility and I know<br />
the government, we believe it’s got a lot<br />
of history in the area. So the intent is to<br />
find someone else to <strong>com</strong>e in and operate<br />
it.”<br />
The government will be requesting<br />
proposals for the Frost Centre in the<br />
<strong>com</strong>ing months.<br />
Aubry, meanwhile, is planning to<br />
spend time with his six grandkids and<br />
do some woodworking.<br />
“I feel extremely privileged to have<br />
the opportunity to work on a project<br />
that gave thousands of kids a learning<br />
experience they wouldn’t have had otherwise,”<br />
he says.<br />
The Frost Centre Institute will close<br />
at the end of the month.