Our community has a great chance to preserve and develop a green network of non-motorized trails linking neighbourhoods and meeting places throughout the municipality.
The time is now.
Join us at our Annual General Meeting of Chelsea Trails
Monday, April 23, 2012 at 7 pm
Chelsea Community Centre basement
Sentiers Chelsea Trails presents, May 5 at 8 pm, Camp Fortune Main Lodge:
A Funraiser and Dance Party in memory of Sentiers Chelsea Trails founding member Richard Garlick. Featuring The B-Side Band, Les Poutines Etouffées, David Irving, John Burns’ Elvis Band and special surprise guests.
Join us for an evening of great music, dancing, prizes and FUN FUN FUN! Fabulous snacks courtesy of our sponsors Boucanerie Chelsea and Le Resto as well as Restaurant Les Fougères.
Purchase your tickets online.
Click to view the poster.
We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of our sponsors:
Boucanerie Chelsea Smokehouse
Le Resto
Restaurant Les Fougères
3 Kids and a Flying Dog taken by Katie Gray
Thanks to everyone who submitted photos to our First Annual photo contest. We received 50 entries from all parts of the community . The gold, silver and bronze winners will be on display at the Chelsea Library from Friday afternoon, February 24 until March 23And thanks to judges who weighed in from locations around the world to pick the winning entries. Photographer Mike Beedell from Dominican Republic, Ray Zahab from Chile, Geoff Green and Mayor Caryl Green from the snowy environs of Chelsea.
Gold went to: Helen MacKinnon, Deanna Johnston,Winston Cox, Katie Gray ( adult) and Jem Hodgson (youth)
Silver winners are…… John Urban, Carolyn Raab, Élisabeth Veyrat, Michael Tobalt (adult) and Noah Loomis (youth)
Bronze winners are ……Sue Cook, Paul Hanvey, Kirsten Taylor Bosman, Sara Crouch
Thanks to our prize sponsors: Impossible2 Possible, Greg Christie Ski and cycle and Mike Beedell.
To view a slideshow of all the entries click here.
Photo Contest is now closed ….. stay tuned for the winners.
All 49 images are now in the hands of the judges. Winners will be posted here, on line, on Tuesday, February 21.
Visit the Chelsea Library to see the winning shots from the First Annual Chelsea Trails Photo contest . They will be on display at the Chelsea Library from Friday afternoon, February 24 until March 23.
To celebrate the trails running throu
gh our backyards and neighbourhoods, SCT is launching our first annual photo contest. Maybe you skate on the beaver ponds, walk your dog, ski through the woods, look for birds, play in the snow or just walk through the forest, we want you to capture those moments with your camera and share them.
There will be first, second and third prizes awarded to winners in two age groups and four theme categories. A team of celebrity of judges including Mike Beedell, Ray Zahab, Caryl Green, and Geoff Green will select the winners. All submissions will be included in an online photo tapestry and the winning photos will be put on display in Chelsea.
For full contest details and information on how to enter follow this link.
(L to R)Malcolm McHattie and Doug Taylor of Sentiers Chelsea Trails, joined Municipal Community Development Officer, Marie Danielle Michaud, on November 17 to look at possible trails and trail access through the proposed new development on Cercle des Erables. Doug consults the map while Malcolm peers at his GPS display to line-up their co-ordinates.
Alen Richens gives the history of the trails
We probably broke some record for trail traffic on Sunday, October 16, when more than fifty walkers and at least ten dogs joined Alan Richens for a historic walk along Chelsea’s trail system. The route began at the Municipal trail on Musie Road, travelled up the ridge and followed the chain of beaver ponds to end at the Larrimac Golf Course. This is the second family hike organized by Chelsea trails to introduce community members to another piece of the longstanding network of nature trails that wind through our neighbourhoods. The group walked for more than three hours, stopping along the way for Alan to explain the history of some of the routes that he has been walking and skiing for more than fifty years. Some of the trails were even named, by Alan and friends including the Northwest Passage the top end of Larrimac Golf course.
Thanks to George Rogerson and Heidi von Graevenitz for organizing the event. And there will be more! Chelsea trail will be planning more trail exploration outings in the future. Stay tuned
Posted by Roberta Walker
Richard Garlick
Chelsea Trails has lost one of its founding members to cancer.
Richard Garlick was a person who lived his passions and one of them was Chelsea’s network of trails. . He skied them in the winter every chance he got. And in the Spring and Fall, he groomed and walked them, and just simply loved them.
He lived in the Ridge Group and was the unsung trail steward for the neighbourhood’. After 25 years in the neighbourhood, things inevitably changed, new houses were built and the trail system eroded as the neighbourhoods began to fill up with houses.
He along with a number of his close friends lamented the dwindling trail system until one day, a few Chelsea residents decided to hold a meeting and see if there was any interest in creating an official organization to build Chelsea trails into the future of our Municipality. This idea ignited Richard and propelled him into all the actions, meetings, and emails that eventually launched Sentiers Chelsea Trails. Once he had gotten things going, he had to turn all his energy towards his own health. Unfortunately, that boundless energy for ideas and life was eventually consumed by his cancer and he died in June of this year.
He would be amazed to see the momentum he started and we will all be touched by his memory as we travel the trails…..thank you Richard for leaving us with a legacy for future generations.
Called Indian Lookout in the 1940’s, this viewpoint off Musie Road is part of the trails land owned by the Municipality.
Chelsea is endowed with a rich network of informal trails that have been here since before the mid-1800s. Originally these were wagon trails or foot paths providing Chelsea’s rural residents with access to the Gatineau River and to the railway line that moved passengers and freight north and south. For example, the trail from Larrimac Golf Club to Meech Lake was originally called Cooper’s Trail. Known today as the Wood Trail, this route splits into three parts at O’Rourke’s clearing—one branch ending at Cowden Road, near Pine Road, in the Meech Creek Valley, another crossing Meech Creek at the ruins of Thomas “Carbide” Willson’s fertilizer mill, and a third emerging at what was the Dunlop Farm at Meech Lake road. All these trails were essential to allow homesteaders to move about in the community
In the early part of the 20th Century—with the advent of motorized vehicles and improved road access—these old settlers’ trails found new uses among individuals looking for a challenging recreational experience, such as hiking and skiing, or simply for a way to get closer to the natural beauty of the area. In the years following the First World War, cross-country ski touring in the Gatineau hills became extremely popular, thanks in large measure to the efforts of the Ottawa Ski Club. Skiers would travel by train (or, after the mid-1920s, by bus) to destinations such as Kingsmere, Tenaga, Ironside or Kirk’s Ferry where they could access an extensive network of trails connecting to other villages, or to one of several ski lodges that began springing up in the 1920s.
A group of Nepean High school students volunteered their time to CT to begin the labour-intensive process of GPS data collection. This data will be used to map the existing trail inventory and assess the status of the trail as existing, secured, at risk or protected. This is the first step in CT’s work to build a master plan for the trail network.
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