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Walking Trails Not To Wait For
by Debi Osborne
Many of us love going for a good stroll. Some like it for exercise while others just enjoy seeing life beyond their own yard or workplace. This is why the District of Houston prepared a proposed Walking Trail Plan in July of 1996.

When complete, there will be a total of four major areas linked to each other and maintained for public use, for use on horseback or on foot. The trails already exist, but they need a little polishing in the way of connecting foot bridges, gravelling, information signs or widening. One of the trails was written about in the article on Alexandra Park, where you leave the Houston Arena and head south along the Upper Buck Creek.

One of few existing trail signs
According to the Walking Trail Plan, the Trail route begins at the Chamber of Commerce, crosses Highway 16, then heads to Buck Creek where a path can be followed past the Shopping Centre parking lot to Alexnadra Park and beyond. It will become a 4.5 km (return) walk, including a marked "Fitness Route" 330 metres long, circling the park area. (Fitness Routes usually have posted work-out stations that each suggest a different activity.)

The second trail, which still needs a lot of work, is the 2.7 km "High School Loop." It includes the popular Duck Pond, which recently received a new boardwalk, benches and gravelled path. It can be accessed through Hungerford Drive or Hagman Crescent.
A salmon tries to swim upstream through this shallow spot
The other two trails begin behind the Chamber of Commerce, go north of town and across the railway tracks. These are the more interesting of the four, offering a wide variety of terrain from untouched woodlands to burbling creek beds. You can easily spend hours traipsing along the Lower Bulkley River in search of wildflowers or to spot a salmon struggling its way up a rocky shallow spot in the water.

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