By John Francis
One day last week, Tobermory got cut off from the rest of the world. Somebody lost control of their vehicle halfway between Warner Bay Road and Cameron Lake Road and got into an argument with a hydro pole. The driver walked away but the hydro pole didn’t. It fell onto the highway and blocked traffic for a period of time, generating a social media frenzy.
First responders and hydro personnel worked feverishly to get traffic moving safely on the highway without cutting off power to the whole community for hours.
Those who were held up on the highway endured their time with varying degrees of patience. One gentlemen is said to have demanded to be allowed to pass because the traffic blockage violated his civil rights.
It’s all good comedy, but it could have been a lot more serious — if a tractor trailer jackknifed, for example, or a fuel truck got into a crash…
For a large section of Highway 6, there is no alternative route, not even for emergency vehicles.
We need to fix that.
Luckily, there is a relatively easy solution. It’s not particularly convenient and it’s far from a straight line, but it’s cheap, easy and requires relatively few approvals. It would also double as a kick-butt cycling and hiking trail.
Imagine — being able to cycle from Tobermory to Lion’s Head or Stokes Bay without using Highway 6!
I’m not talking about a proper road — it doesn’t need to handle two-way traffic. All that’s needed is a 3m (10 ft) wide strip of gravel for firetrucks, ambulances and evacuation vehicles going in one direction — and only in emergencies.
Between emergencies, it would just be a hiking and cycling trail, with gates to keep motorized vehicles out.
Much of the route I propose is already passable to vehicles.
Hidden Valley Road and Shouldice Lake Road used to connect — they were the road from Lion’s Head to Tobermory. The middle section of that trail fell into disuse when the new highway offered a much more convenient route. But the old road is still there and still (I’m told) passable to bicycles and 4-wheel drive vehicles. It would not be hard to bring it back up to one-way ambulance and fire truck standards.
Hidden Valley Road connects to Johnston Harbour Road, which turns into Dorcas Bay Road. That would provide an alternative route to the East Road via Dyers Bay Road.
Northward from Dorcas Bay Road is a bit more challenging, but it’s OK — we got this.
Across the highway from Dorcas Bay Road is an unopened road allowance which was used as a driveway to a long-demolished cottage. It’s still passable and could easily be brought back to single lane standard.
From that road allowance to Beach Road at the west end of Cameron Lake is about 400 metres.
There are two existing routes — the snowmobile trail which is moist but already cleared or a century-old trail along an upland beach ridge which would need to be enlarged but wouldn’t need much in the way of fill.
Either way, Beach Road gets you to Cameron Lake Road. Now we need to find a route that connects Cameron Lake Road to Tobermory.
There are at least two choices.
You could gravel in the snowmobile trail, for example. I don’t like that idea because it crosses private property and wetlands. The route I prefer is quite a bit longer, but it uses a lot of existing roads and trails and avoids wetlands.
If you follow Warner Bay Road to the end, then turn left on Eagle Road for a couple of kilometres, it gets you to a road allowance that goes all the way to Highway 6. The first kilometre of it is already a road — the former driveway to a long-demolished cottage on William Henry Marsh. From that driveway, it’s two kilometres along a road allowance to Highway 6. There is an existing trail that parallels the road allowance. If an accommodation could be reached with the landowner — the national park for most of the distance — that would simplify things enormously.
Either way, that trail would come out on Highway 6 right across the road from a logging road on the former Rovers property, now owned by Parks Canada.
From this point, there would be two choices (which can actually be mixed and matched). There are logging roads on the former Rovers property that connect to Cameron Lake Road; those logging roads could easily be brought up to emergency standards. Alternatively, there are road allowances that could be opened up. The one choice minimizes expense and environmental damage but requires coming to an accommodation with Parks; the other involves building new road but requires no permissions because it stays on municipal road allowances. Both routes avoid significant wetlands.
That completes the connection to Eagle Drive, from which you can get to Cape Hurd Road, from which you can get to Centennial Drive and Dunks Bay Road.
That gets you from the edge of Tobermory to Lion’s Head or Stokes Bay without using Highway 6. It would be long and slow, but you’d never need more than part of it for any given emergency.
But the cyclists would love it!
Absurdly, there is no alternative to Highway 6 for that final kilometre between Dunks Bay Road and the village of Tobermory. A relatively easy (but politically fraught) solution would be to use the unopened road allowance from Chi Sin Tib Dek Road (Park Visitor Centre Road) to Dunks Bay Road. There are other possibilities — too numerous to discuss here.
