Border Dissolves Amid Celebration Recreational Trail Will Be World’S Longest

The fog that crept down the mountainside above the border crossing here Tuesday erased the boundary line etched into the forest.

The border between customs offices dissolved, too, as citizens from Canada, the United States and the Kootenai Indian nation held hands and danced to the throbbing beat of a drum circle.

The occasion was the arrival of a relay cyclist on the Trans Canada Trail, the longest recreational trail in the world that’s under construction across Canada.

While the trail officially will open this fall, it could take 10 years or more for certain sections to be complete.

The communities of Yahk and Kingsgate plan to one day extend a spur of the trail to the Idaho border crossing.

“This is very important to us,” said David Finch, a local relay organizer. “We’re neighbors. People hardly look at us as Americans or Canadians. We’re all friends.”

The cyclist, Yahk Postmistress Deb Knapton, delivered a letter for nine-year-old Zachary Callister, a special guest from Eastport, Idaho.

Knapton handed the over-sized letter to Eastport Postmistress Barb Brown, who handed the letter to Zachary. Zachary read it aloud over the P.A. system; “Dear Zach, Please accept this invitation on behalf of all United States Citizens, to join us on foot, by bicycle or horseback, on the Trans Canada Trail …

“Often following the footpaths of our First Nations People, these trails across Canada are an opportunity to slow down, breath deeply and appreciate the journey we are making together.”

Much of the 10,000 miles of trail is being built by volunteers along abandoned railways. The effort, launched in 1992 by the Trans Canada Trail Foundation, is 70 percent complete, said Marilyn Strong, a community organizer.

As a millennium celebration, and to raise interest in the trail and its construction, Relay 2000 will deliver waters from three oceans to the new football field-sized Trans Canada Trail fountain in Ottawa, the nation’s capitol, on Sept. 9, 2000.

The relay involves 5,000 water carriers across the country. It originated last month in three locations; Victoria, B.C.; Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories; and St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Participants, who carry the ocean water in a small green flask in a fanny pack, are traveling by foot, snowshoe, snowmobile, cross-country skis, dogsled, horse, and bicycle. Where the trail isn’t yet developed, they’re taking logging roads, bypasses, roads and highways, Strong said.

“There are some issues still outstanding,” Strong said, when asked about progress of the route.

One trouble spot is the lack of a connection through the Canadian Rockies. The route was supposed to follow a government service route over Elk Pass, but trail builders have hit a roadblock.

“The coal company stopped us at Fort Steele (B.C.),” said Wayne Buholzer of the B.C. Trails Society, who is overseeing trail construction in that area.

The Fording Coal Company opposes the route from Elkford, B.C., to the pass because it could impact its plans for coal mining there. Buholzer said the company plans to mine beneath the river.

“It’s sort of a 19th century battle,” Buholzer said. “They want to move the whole river. You can imagine how people would react.”

Nonetheless, the relay will follow the government service road through the valley with hopes that the impasse can be worked out in the future, organizers said.

Buholzer said the trail promoters have also run into conflicts with backcountry outfitters, who would prefer that the trail stick to the highways.

“But people want this to be a back-country trail,” he said. “We have enough highways.”

The mayor of Bonners Ferry joined Tuesday’s ceremony, along with children from Yahk and Mount Hall elementary schools, local townspeople, customs officials and Chief Sophie Pierre of the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council.

“Kisukkuyit,” Pierre said, giving the Kootenai greeting. “It’s nice that Mother Nature is blessing us with waters coming down on us from the heavens as we carry waters from her oceans.”

Then, nearly everyone in the crowd of nearly 200 had a chance to hold the ceremonial water vessel, with its stylized maple leaf depicting the unity of Canada.

Kingsgate toddler Logan Wullum was the first to hold the vessel, before passing it off to Bonners Ferry Mayor Darrell Kerby.

Logan’s mother said she came because of “just the little bit of excitement happening here. That doesn’t usually happen in Kingsgate.”