LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear Sir:
The "Hiawatha Highlands" recreation area is one of the few natural advantages Sault Ste Marie enjoys when it comes to competing with northern commmunities recruiting newly-graduated physicians.
Unfortunately, the Sault Trails and Recreation(STAR) management of the Hiawatha ski trails has lead to their progressive degradation and deterioration.
A trail system once the envy of most Ontario cities is now among the poorest in Northern Ontario.
Of the three former members of STAR, only the Conservation Area denies this reality, and my belief is that blame for this decline falls squarely on the shoulders of the CA, through its manipulation of STAR to its own financial advantage.
With the dissolution of STAR, the SFNSC and the Kinsmen, both volunteer-based service organisations, are trying to revive some hope for our ski trails.
Now, though, that hope is being doused with a cold splash of CA meddling once again.
With nothing to offer skiers except control over publicly-owned taxpayers’ lands, the CA is once again pursuing its financial agenda and trying to hijack skiing revenues.
This cannot be permitted.
The CA has no volunteer base, no history of excellence in skiing, no track record of success: the 15-year experiment with the CA as a partner in STAR is a proven failure.
If the CA demands for rent on public lands cannot be reined in, we risk seeing the Hiawatha trails bankrupted as a skiing venue.
This loss would add yet another reason for active, outdoors-oriented young doctors to take their families and their futures elsewhere.
Already we have lost doctors for this reason.
Let the people who know skiing, run skiing; let ski revenues go to develop ski resources like grooming equipment, trail-head facilities, and trail maintenance and development.
Let Sault Ste. Marie catch up with Cobalt and Parry Sound and Timmins, and maybe then we can try to reel in Sudbury, North Bay and Thunder Bay.
The race isn’t lost yet, but we need racers of proven mettle to pull us back into the lead pack, and the CA are not the ones to do it.
- Michael Keating, MD, Fourth Line
