Pathfinder Newsletter

Below is the current issue of Pathfinder Newsletter. Enjoy!

Pathfinder Winter 2024

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Past Editions

Pathfinder Winter 2024 Pathfinder Spring 2024 Pathfinder Newsletter – Winter 2023

2022 AGM Summary and Introduction to New Board Members

by Ashley Irving On September 26, 2022 the GDTA held their Annual General Meeting in Calgary, Alberta at Elite Brewing & Cidery. This hybrid version also had an online option so folks afar could Zoom in and take part. Approximately 75 people were in person, with another 20 online. Keynote…

2022 GDTA Volunteer Recognition Awards

by Kate Hamilton GDTA volunteers are one of the most important parts of the organization. Without them, there would not be a Great Divide Trail. We have amazing, committed and skilled volunteers that work hard year round. All of our volunteers are important and have a significant impact to the…

2022 GDTA Annual Report

Presented by Doug Borthwick, President, and Kate Hamilton, Executive Director. ============================================================== by Doug Borthwick, President Wow! What a year. It started pretty rough for a lot of us on the Board. The changing pandemic situation was opening up travel, there were key life changes, and burnout experienced, and as a…

2022 GDTA Trail Building and Maintenance Trips

by Tasha Shakotko and Kate Hamilton The trail building and maintenance committee, chaired by Dave Hockey, had a very busy and productive summer. Several trail crews answered the needs, both planned and unplanned, of Sections B, D, E, F and G. All told, it amounted to: Trail crews kicked off…

Conifer Cornucopia

By Jenny L. Feick, PhD All pictures taken by the author unless otherwise noted. Anyone hiking on Canada’s Great Divide Trail in the summer of 2022 could not help but notice the prolific cone crop on the spruce and fir trees along the GDT. In fact, anyone hiking in the…

Draft Update on the GDTA Trail Users Code

By Jenny Feick, PhD The original Great Divide Trail Association (from the mid-1970s to late 1980s) developed a trail user’s code that first appeared in 1975 and 1976 in the two editions of their policy paper. On pages 9-10 of the Great Divide Trail: Banff to Waterton, Its Concept and Future,…

GDTA Winter 2022 Webinars

This winter the Outreach Committee presented four GDT trip planning Webinars: Webinar 1: Planning and Preparing for Your GDT Hike Webinar 2: Gear Webinar 3: Resupplying and Food Preparation Webinar 4: Training and Injury Prevention These webinars were well attended. For those not able to attend, videos were posted on…

Musings on the GDT Past to Present to Future

by Bethany Hughes Six months ago we were turning past a forest fire burning just off highway 16 on our way up to Kakwa trailhead, where we hiked into a hailstorm to begin the Great Divide Trail. Making a bid on a south bound, autumn thru-hike, we were grateful for…

What Goes Around (But Didn’t Go Anywhere) Has Come Around Again

By Jenny Feick, PhD Read in The Globe and Mail: https://apple.news/ARKD6TecwThGWflUpiS9nHg Brianna Sharpe’s Globe & Mail article in April 2022 entitled “Hikers push for Alberta’s Great Divide Trail to be given official recognition” brought to mind one of the many opinion pieces expressed during the story telling sessions that formed the backbone of the book…

Resurrecting the GDTA Trail Users Code

By Jenny Feick, PhD I recalled the old GDTA Trail Users Code while listening to the Her Odyssey duo when Lani Smith, my husband Ian Hatter and I met them for lunch at Truffle Pigs in Field on a clear sunny September day in 2021. Bethany Hughes and Lauren Reed…