BC Has Big Plans for Outdoor Recreation
Outside, a high ceiling of gray clouds hung over the sagebrush hills. Down in the valley, the North and South Thompson rivers met and flowed lazily through downtown Kamloops.
Inside a conference hall at Thompson Rivers University, more than 350 representatives of British Columbia’s outdoor recreation community were gathered. It was the first time the Outdoor Recreation Council of British Columbia had organized a gathering like this in its 50 years of operations. And, it was kicking off with big news. The outdoor recreation strategy that British Columbia had been promising for nearly half a decade was finally being released.
“This strategy recognizes outdoor recreation as a sector in its own right,” explained John Hawkings, the Recreation Strategy & Service Transformation Executive Lead for the province’s Ministry of Environment and Parks. “[The] strategy sets out an all-of-government approach to outdoor recreation.”
Hawkings was on stage to explain the strategy to the gathered trail builders, tourism managers, researchers, guides and business owners gathered for the three-day conference. He opened with a story about riding Half Nelson, one of Squamish’s most well-known mountain bike trails, a few days earlier.
“Absolutely beautiful conditions,” he explained, describing that perfect moment after a good rain when trail dirt is tacky, but not muddy. “It reminded me that this is fun…[for] all the value and data, we have to remember this is about the experience.”
Applause echoed off the walls as he described the plan and its 17 goals for BC’s outdoor recreation sector. Goals like increasing Indigenous leadership, streamlining permitting processes for businesses and trail builders, and working to create a more sustainable funding model for outdoor recreation and trails.
“Where’s the Money?”
During a lull in Hawkings’ presentation, a hush hung over the room. A quiet voice called out the question on the top of many people’s minds.
“Where’s the money?”
Hawkings avoided answering directly, but when a later question asked about funding for major trail projects, he was blunt.
“The short answer is no,” he said. “That’s the fiscal environment we’re in. I’m not sure there was ever a time when the government was in a position to fund a $20 million, or even a $5 million, trail build-out…programs like BC Parks and Recreation Sites and Trails do have capital budgets, but even those are incredibly tapped.”
That’s a major challenge. Trail groups are struggling to keep up with rising maintenance costs due to increased use and climate-related damage.
“Many of us are facing the same challenges,” said Louise Pedersen, executive director of the Outdoor Recreation Council. “Without adequate attention and funding for the sector, volunteer burnout is growing. Funding is stretched thin. Infrastructure and maintenance backlogs mount up. Many groups are spending time trying to survive, let alone planning for how we can make things better.”
In 2023, the province created the $10 million Outdoor Recreation Fund of BC to try to address this. But according to the Outdoor Recreation Council, which manages the fund, it’s already “heavily oversubscribed” and can “support only about 15 percent of grant requests.”
But Pederson says that this strategy feels different than previous plans, like the province’s 2013 Trails Strategy.
“Ministries are finally working together now,” Pederson said. “The Minister of Health, the Ministers of Tourism, Environment, Jobs and Economic Growth…we haven’t seen that before, so I take that as a sign that there is some serious intent to reap the benefits of outdoor recreation.”
And while the new strategy doesn’t include any specific funding commitments, Tamara Davidson, the Minister of Environment and Parks, said that the plan is to look “for areas that we can be working collaboratively together on and look for the gaps” in funding.
“If they’re looking for extra funding, what would that extra funding look like?” she said.
So far, it looks like $1.5 million from the Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program being directed towards three outdoor recreation projects. The biggest is the ReHub Circular Technology Centre at College of the Rockies, a $1 million program run through the Kootenay Outdoor Recreation Enterprise Society to establish BC’s first rural clean-manufacturing and repair facility.
Another $100,000 is going to the Outdoor Recreation Council to assess how outdoor recreation can serve as a catalyst for economic diversification and resilience in rural communities. Nearly $400,000 is going to the McBride Big Country Snowmobile Association to restore a snowmobile trail network in the Robson Valley.
Building “Iconic Trails”
One of the most interesting aspects of the new strategy for hikers and bikers might be the launch of what the province is calling an “iconic trails program.”
“Every time that I see an Outside magazine article about the 10 greatest hikes in the world or the 10 greatest experiences, and I don’t see BC on the list, I get frustrated,” Hawkings explained during his presentation. “Think about the Sunshine Coast Trail, think about the Juan de Fuca Trail, think about so many of our amazing trails.”
The province didn’t define an iconic trail in the plan, but it did mention the Sunshine Coast trail, the Juan de Fuca trail, the Berg Lake trail, the West Coast trail and “rail-trail corridors.”
This last one might come as a surprise to communities like Princeton, where in early 2026, the province announced that it planned to decommission 67 kilometres of the nearby Kettle Valley Trail.
“The decision to decommission a section of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail near Princeton exemplifies the harsh realities of climate-impacted management,” the Ministry of Environment and Parks explained.
But while Princeton mayor Spencer Coyne said that he understands the reality of climate change, he questions the decision.
“We’ve done a huge amount of work in Princeton to market ourselves around the country to try to bring people here,” Coyne explained. “We’re seeing our tourism numbers increase, and then we lose assets.”
That frustrated Coyne, especially because he remembers efforts to get the Kettle Valley trail recognized as something like an iconic trail.
“We were pushing right from the early 2000s to make this a make [the Kettle Valley trail] a park system,” Coyne said. “A linear park across the province, take all these rail trails and turn them into a linear park.”
He says that the province liked the idea, but told him they would never do it.
“Why not?” He explained. “Because then they’ll have to actually support it.”
When asked about the iconic trails plan, Minister Davidson spoke about trail marketing.
“The iconic trails program is going to be a really great way for us to utilize not just the Recreation Sites and Trails program, but also the tourism program, and through that Destination BC,” she explained. “We want to focus our marketing efforts into making sure that tourists that are coming here understand what they’re getting into, what the trails are going to be like.”
But in other jurisdictions, world renowned trails like the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, are also managed differently. Those trails are designated under the United States’ National Scenic Trail program. Reserved for a small handful of “primarily non-motorized continuous trails [that] extend for 100 miles or more,” these trails are sort of like long, narrow national parks. It covers the iconic trails named earlier, but also lesser-known routes like the Ice Age Trail, the New England Trail and the North Country Trail.
The National Park Service describes them as “routes [that] traverse beautiful terrain, and connect communities, significant landmarks and public lands.” They provide some funding for trail work and other costs, but money also comes from other parts of the government, including America’s Federal Highway Administration.
Thanks to the Recreation Trails Program, the fund uses tax revenue from off-road vehicle sales to fund trail projects. The Highway Administration also provides emergency funding after natural disasters, like the atmospheric river that hit the Pacific Crest Trail in late 2025.
“[We can] access emergency relief funds from the Federal Highways Administration, which is not something that you would associate with a largely wilderness trail,” Sam Webster, North Cascades Regional Manager with the Pacific Crest Trail Association, said. “Congress wrote into the Federal Highways Management Act that National Scenic Trails are eligible for emergency relief funds in these disaster areas.”
And while BC may be focused on marketing its trails, the Kettle Valley trail, and the millions spent rebuilding the Juan de Fuca and Berg Lake trails after damage from flooding in 2022, makes the rising cost of managing iconic trails clear. With this new “all-of-government” approach to recreation, looking at models like the National Scenic Trail program could be one way to address that.
A Growing Sector with Growing Challenges
“The [province] recognizes tourism and outdoor recreation as one of eight critical sectors in the province,” Hawkings said. “That’s a really big deal.”
That recognition follows data released by the province in late 2025 showing that outdoor recreation generated around $17 billion in economic activity and contributed $4.8 billion to the province’s GDP in 2023.
That’s something this strategy plans to grow, but growth comes with challenges. More trail users means more maintenance and impacts. It also means more potential for conflict between user groups, and a bigger environmental impact.
Those impacts are something that Nikki Heim, the Manager of Communities & Conservation with Yellowstone to Yukon, tried to answer when she worked with the Ktunaxa Nation to look at the cumulative effects of recreation in the Kootenays. Her research, published in the journal Environmental Management in 2025, found that human-powered trails can stress wolverines and grizzly bears. Other researchers found similar things about caribou, mountain goats and other vulnerable species.
“We need to start including recreation as a significant use on our land base,” Heim said.
There’s also the potential for conflict between recreation and other land uses. In some places, it manifests on the dirt and gravel roads recreational groups depend on to access the backcountry.
“In the province we have more than 600,000 kilometres of resource roads,” said Joe Kenny, Senior Manager Policy and Legislation with the Ministry of Forests. “The vast majority of those have no one overseeing their management.”
That means when roads wash out or get damaged, it can cut off access to trailheads. And unless there is a logging or mining project using that road, they stay damaged.
There are also conflicts between industry and recreation. Like in Rossland, BC, where the community is fighting a plan to build a mine near the Seven Summits Trail, a 30-kilometre mountain-bike and hiking trail that traverses the Rossland Range.
It’s a complicated set of challenges. To tackle them, a network of organizations came together under the banner of the Outdoor Sector Coalition to help advise and steer the new strategy. Announced by the BC Parks Foundation alongside the new strategy, it includes the Outdoor Recreation Council, Kootenay Outdoor Recreation Enterprise and groups “representing over 2,000 businesses, associations, local governments, recreation and volunteer groups and educational institutions”.
“British Columbians and guests from around the world love our outdoors,” said Andy Day, CEO of BC Parks Foundation and inaugural chair of the Coalition. “But it’s under a lot of pressure. This new Coalition is about increasing outdoor enjoyment without alienating loyal users or spoiling people’s outdoor experience.”
