Eva Baldi
Luskville July 21, 2021
Though the National Capital Commission’s (NCC) Gatineau park master plan states that it is closing all trails west of Eardly-Masham road, one trail will remain open, the trail managed by the Pontiac Equestrian Association.
The Pontiac Equestrian Association is a volunteer-run non-profit association tasked with maintaining a 14-kilometre equestrian trail on NCC owned land in the Gatineau park.
The association started in 2010 when local horse enthusiasts were looking to reinstate the pre-existing trail. The previous trail was run by another association, one of the members even ran a guided trail-riding business from his farm at the base of Gatineau park. According to Sheila McCrindle, a founding member of Pontiac Equestrian, the prior association was in disarray. After years of not paying their association fees to the province and the NCC, the new group decided to rebrand themselves as the Pontiac Equestrian Association.
“You have to register with the province, and pay a fee every year, it’s pretty nominal, but it hadn’t been done for a long time so there was a big fine,” said McCrindle.
McCrindle’s farm borders the mountain, which gave her good reason to be invested in the success of an association responsible for the trail. As the trail is on NCC land, a land use agreement was signed for the use of the trail for horses and hikers. The agreement states that all riders must be insured. Insurance from Cheval Quebec is included in membership fees. For the past three years, the number of members has been steadily falling. Carole Savard, Pontiac Equestrian Association secretary added that they are down from 80 members in 2019 to only 50 members so far in 2021. Like many issues in the past two years, this fall in memberships was significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. During the first lockdown, people who boarded their horses were unable to see them. Furthermore, the lockdown halted all group activities, this meant that the several events and fundraisers that Pontiac Equestrian organizes to entice members to join throughout the year were unable to continue.
In pandemic-free years, the association organizes events such as tack sales, obstacle fun days, poker rides on the trail, as well as a cowboy challenge competition. As most things in a non-profit, all of their events are reliant on volunteers.
According to Pontiac Equestrian president Brian Evenchick, by the end of 2020, the association had accumulated over 196 volunteer hours working on the trail. To date in 2021, volunteers have put in 49 hours.
“We are always in need of volunteers to keep it going, there is a certain amount of work that needs to be done in terms of trail maintenance and administrative tasks,” said McCrindle. “If we don’t get volunteers to step forward and do that, the association won’t be able to continue.”
Both McCrindle and Savard spoke about the beauty of the trail. They both expressed that the ever-changing scenery of the Gatineau park brought something that most trails did not have. “A lot of trails are all in the forest for example, but in our trail the scenery changes around every corner” said McCrindle.
“We have hills, we have flat, we have good footing, we have bridges to go over, we have forests, and we have fields,” said Savard. “Our little trail is just 14 kilometres, but it is like a concentrate of the dream trail.”
More information about the Pontiac Equestrian Association is available at pontiacequestre.com.
