A shelf-ready funding document that guides development for years
Along the territory of Williams Lake First Nation, a quiet but consequential act of self-determination is underway: community members are being asked what they want their land to look like, and how they wish to move through it. A trails master plan — shaped by member voices rather than outside planners — will determine not only where paths are built, but who may walk them and why. It is a document that carries both practical weight, as a ready instrument for securing funding, and deeper meaning, as an expression of a community's relationship to its own landscape. In a moment when the outdoors has become essential to collective wellbeing, the First Nation is choosing to build that future deliberately.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has made outdoor access feel less like amenity and more like necessity, pressing the First Nation to act with purpose and urgency.
- A narrow survey window — closing March 21, 2021 — means the community has only days to shape a plan that will define their recreational landscape for a generation.
- The question of whether to open trails to non-community visitors carries real tension, touching on sovereignty, belonging, and the terms on which outsiders may enter Indigenous territory.
- Trails specialist Thomas Schoen frames the master plan as a 'shelf-ready funding document' — a strategic tool that transforms community vision into capital investment.
- Specific sites near Borland Creek and the Sugar Cane community are already in view, with construction targeted for 2022 once the plan is finalized by year's end.
Williams Lake First Nation has launched a community survey to shape a trails master plan — a document that will determine where paths are built across their territory, what purposes they serve, and whether people from outside the community will be permitted to use them. The questions are deliberate and the stakes are real: the answers members give now will become the blueprint for years of trail development.
Trails specialist Thomas Schoen, who previously helped the First Nation complete a trail network connecting to the Fox Mountain system in 2016, explains that a master plan is more than a map. It is a funding instrument — something a community can hand to a funder with confidence, translating vision into infrastructure. That practical dimension makes the document as valuable in an office as it is on the ground.
Chief Willie Sellars grounds the initiative in health. Moving through one's own land — walking, cycling, breathing — is not a luxury, he argues, but something essential, made more urgent by the isolation of the pandemic. The First Nation has particular places in mind: trails along Borland Creek and above the Sugar Cane community, where members can experience their territory directly.
The plan is expected to be complete by the end of 2021, with construction beginning in 2022. But the foundation is being laid now, through a survey that closes March 21 — a brief window in which the community's own voice will determine what gets built, and for whom.
Williams Lake First Nation is asking its members what they want from the trails that will shape their territory for years to come. The leadership has launched a survey seeking community input on a master trails plan—a document that will guide where paths get built, what they're used for, and whether outsiders should be allowed to walk them. The questions are practical and direct: What should these trails be for? Should the community open them to visitors from beyond the reserve? The answers will become the blueprint for a generation of trail development.
Thomas Schoen, a trails specialist brought in to advise the First Nation, explains why this matters beyond just having somewhere to walk. A master plan is what cities and First Nations across the country are turning to now—a single document that doesn't just say where trails should go, but why, and how to pay for them. "The big value in that document is also that it's a shelf-ready funding document," Schoen says. It's the kind of thing that sits on a desk ready to hand to a funder, a blueprint that makes the money flow. Schoen has worked with Williams Lake before; he helped the First Nation complete trails in 2016 that start and finish at the Chief Will-Yum Campsite and connect into the Fox Mountain Trail Network.
Chief Willie Sellars frames this as a health issue. Getting people outside, moving their bodies, walking or biking through their own territory—that's not luxury, it's essential. The COVID-19 pandemic has only sharpened this thinking. "Being outside and getting exercise is very key, especially now with the COVID-19 outbreak," Sellars said. The vision isn't complicated: trails for walking, trails for biking, trails that let people experience what their land actually looks like.
The First Nation has specific places in mind. Sellars imagines trails by Borland Creek and above the Sugar Cane community, places where members can move through the landscape and see it clearly. The timeline is ambitious but deliberate. The plan itself should be finished by the end of 2021, which means the real work—the actual building—can start in 2022. That's when the survey answers become shovels and sweat.
The survey itself closes on March 21, 2021. It's a narrow window, but it's the window the community has to say what it wants. The master plan will be shaped by what people tell them now—not by what planners think they should want, but by what members actually say matters to them. That's the point of asking.
Citações Notáveis
Being outside and getting exercise is very key, especially now with the COVID-19 outbreak. We're starting to see it more and more and encouraging more, and building trails not only for biking but for walking is what the vision is.— Chief Willie Sellars
A lot of cities and First Nations are investing in trail master plans because it gives them a document that guides recreational trail development for years and years to come. The big value in that document is also that it's a shelf-ready funding document.— Thomas Schoen, trails specialist advisor
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a First Nation need a master plan for trails? Why not just build them?
Because a plan is a tool. It tells you where to build next, and it tells funders you know what you're doing. It's the difference between hoping for money and having a document that makes sense to the people who give it.
So this is really about funding?
It's about funding, yes, but also about making sure the trails actually serve the community. You're asking people what they want before you build, not after.
What's the tension around opening trails to non-members?
That's a real question. Do you want your territory to be a public park, or do you want it to stay yours? Both have value. The survey is asking the community to think about it.
Why is Chief Sellars talking about COVID?
Because the pandemic made people see trails differently. They're not just nice to have. They're how people stay healthy when everything else closes. That's a powerful argument for building them now.
What happens after the survey closes?
The answers get analyzed, the plan gets written, and then in 2022 they start building. The real work begins.